It takes a moment to readjust when you next open your eyes, having traversed the non-space you usually move through for these things with no major incident. There were only one or two probing attempts by the various trucks coming for you from unexpected direction and a quick greeting between yourself and the Lutece twins, who seem to be 'positioned' near the reality cluster you're aiming for, before you popped back into reality.
Into being real? It's kind of hard to really accurately describe, to be honest, but either way there you are.
The place that was once Augustus Sinclair's secret internment camp slash political prison, Persephone Detention Facility to keep to the whole Greek mythology naming scheme that Rapture seems to have been caught up in, nowadays completely refurbished and repurposed to serve as your headquarters, surrounds you, the pressing weight of the Atlantic ocean above you yet going unremarked.
"So here we are," you announce, gesturing towards a rack of clothing you prepared before you last left this very place. "Let's get dressed and get everyone introduced, shall we?"
In the corner of the room, a camera clicks, shifting the light emitted by it to red, then green again (because security cameras around Rapture did that for some reason and you kept the feature in for the Thinker) as the Thinker's synthesized voice springs to life. "Welcome back, Gabriel. I see you have been busy during your momentary absence."
"You could say that," you smile, knowing she has access to the full telepathic network, as opposed to the rest of your local thralls (whom you're just giving the updated framework, without a lot of the newer memories and the like- that'll be something for you to work out over time in a bit). "I trust nothing noteworthy has happened since I 'left'?"
"Typically, few major incidents happen within less than a nanosecond. Do you wish to initialize complete reconstruction of all available assets immediately?"
"Let's just get the robots replaced with the newest generations and set up a hundred or so manufactories, we'll need the material production soon enough."
Time to go hog wild, you suppose.
Sarah Livsey's room was just like she left it, her entire mindset falling back into just how it was when she was here last- a vampire thing, obviously, perfect recollection combined with quick and easy adjustment made for a swift, comfortable experience even as she hadn't been here for a while from her point of view.
The pictures she'd drawn and the notes she'd scrawled down were exactly as she'd left them, too, as was to be expected. Now then, as for what she was going to do next…
She had no idea. Her brother was going to be busy for a while, but it didn't seem like anything big or important was gonna come up in the immediate future.
Maybe she'd just keep an eye on everyone else and jump in when she felt like it.
Augustus Sinclair stared at the man that'd appeared out of nowhere. On the one hand, they were in Rapture of all places- there would have been maybe a handful of sane, human-looking blokes left and he'd have known before they came for him, but on the other hand, well, when Satan writes your paychecks…
"I'm Henley, just Henley for now," the bald, pale man introduced himself, a bit shorter than Augustus himself. "I'm the accountant, so I expect I'll be working with you."
"Augustus Sinclair, pleasure to meet you," he drawled, holding out a hand that was taken in turn. "I suppose I look forward to working with you?"
"You likely will. Once the insanity passes, anyways." Whoa there, that didn't sound too good. "Incidentally, I'm supposed to let you know we can just print most matter out of nothing, so any plans or thoughts you may have had will likely need to be revised. It's a secret of course, as are the global teleporters, once we have the hardware in place."
Augustus blinked, wondering if he'd heard right. "Define 'printing matter', if you would?"
"Anything we have we can make more of, just need to wait a day or two for the machines to be in place."
He whistled, already thinking. "Holy moly… Or, uh, whatever is more appropriate to say here."
"Oh, believe me, I used to have to keep track of material acquisition budgets. It's much simpler when you just need a spreadsheet of new material being created and used."
"And less costly. That just leaves, what? Transportation and wage costs for any business that manufactures or sells anything?"
"Manufacturing can be included in the creation process. I also have a more in-depth timeline of predicted world affairs, so let's go over them and see if there and any inconsistencies you recognize."
He had to say, hellspawn or not, it was a fine pleasure to work with a professional.
"Greetings. My name is Curie, I 'ave been chosen to come to this place to further my research in regards to organic compounds," she said, giving a little bow.
"Tenenbaum, Doctor Brigid Tenebaum. Any relation to Pierre and Marie Curie?" The dark-haired biologist asked.
"Only indirectly," Curie admitted. "I was created to facilitate research and my programmer named me after one of 'is greater inspirations. That was before I came to inhabit this artificially created body, of course."
"Is it? Fascinating."
"The technology was adapted from de facto cloning processes, I 'ave it all 'ere if you are interested," she said, sending a telepathic pulse at everyone she knew to be present and interested in science. "Riley, make sure to introduce yourself as well, please."
"I'm Riley Davis and I'm a tinker," the younger girl said, hand raised. "That means I do things that make no sense and they work anyways. I also really like playing with ADAM."
"And I am the Thinker, an artificial intelligence housed within Rapture," an artificial voice chimed in, soon accompanied by a cybernetically-grown android body. "It is a pleasure to meet all of you. Gilbert Alexander is currently preoccupied, but I am sure he will metabolize the plant he has consumed shortly."
"Oh, oh! Can a have a few samples of those? I want to see if they can be used as a mind control drug." A subdued shimmer appeared in the air, soon materializing in the form of several wide, pollyp-ridden plants right in front of Riley. "Thanks!"
"I am sure we will achieve a lot together, so please feel free to call on me if there is anything I can help with," Curie said.
"Likewise," a distracted Doctor Tenenbaum agreed.
"So you can teach me anything Gabriel can do?" Eleanor asked, holding the heavy golden book up (heavy relative to normal books, she was empowered by both ADAM and Gabriel's reality manipulation both).
"Not quite everything, but a lot, yes," the engraved skeletons 'said'. "If I may, if there are any topic you are particularly interested in, I can likely also show you several books about it, as I was created to be capable of shifting my insides accordingly.
"Ooooooohh?" Father asked.
"Sadly, I do not share my creator's… talent… for language, so I cannot understand you, Delta."
"Oouh…"
"Are there any limitations on how often you can be used?" Eleanor asked, seeing as the conversation wasn't going anywhere else.
"Only three broader skillsets or kinds of knowledge, though overlap exists," the book with the voice of an old man replied. "Mortal minds need time to 'digest' such things, lest we run the risk of overwriting the subject's personality. Otherwise, I can use my powers freely."
"Hmm…"
"Hello everyone, I'm back."
""Hello auntie Nora,"" the small congregation of Little Sisters said.
"Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to know or that confuses you, okay? I'll do my best to explain," Nora smiled.
"Why are you so big?" One of them asked, the question echoed by other Little Sisters or nodded to.
"That's because I'm pregnant with Gabriel's child," Nora explained, sitting down to try and coax the girls gently. "I'll give birth to a new little person soon."
Shining yellow eyes widened, echoing voices overlapping in exclamations of amazement.
"Can I touch them?" One of the ashen-pale girls asked.
"Only if you promise to be very gentle and careful," she smiled. Aura and vampiric constitution aside, it was important to teach them to be careful with pregnant women.
These girls were very easy to get along with, as one was a bit understanding of the physiological changes and the brainwashing they'd undergone.
Naturally, as you just basically went and came back to Earth Rapture with a whole new technological base, or rather new standards after advancing what you can do to such an extent you'd call it several generations beyond what you left behind if it wasn't done as swiftly as it was, the replacements and upgrades will be taking a little while yet.
Luckily, you can leave all of that to the Thinker. Mass-production of the new and improved manufactories and eldritch cores will take a few days until it hits critical mass and the new versions of the former can create more of them at such a rapid pace you can just leave them to it, but managing all of that (and the robot upgrades and outright replacements, as your newer Bob models seem to be heavily preferred over the older ones) is much better taken care of in the hands of the resident AI than your own.
You just love being able to delegate all of this mechanical work to someone that doesn't really mind. Enough computational power to literally partially predict the future, so this much is child's play, really.
You're still involved in the planning, though, it goes without saying. Just because it'll take a day or two to get the city replacing started doesn't mean you can't list off the kinds of facilities you may want to include and brainstorm them together with the Thinker. And brainstorm you do, taking pains to suppress your instinctual urge to layer easier available materials in where appropriate due to having easy access to any and all materials you may wish for.
So you just used compounds and alloys that simply wouldn't be feasible normally instead, not without a solid supply chain. Normal stuff you do these days.
It's nice to lose yourself in working out the details of blood extraction facilities, in orgy rooms and play areas for your children, entire districts of what would have been a city once free for you to form as you desire.
Good practice for later, too. You have some plans for this Earth, and there's no pesky heroes or rivals to stop you from doing anything you damn well want. Governments that aren't aware of your existence may as well be your puppets already, given the kinds of technology and powers at your disposal.
Codsworth was, as he had always been for the breadth of his existence so far, a robot butler, concerned largely with the cleaning and running of the household. It just so happened, however, that the household he was responsible for had been nuked, left to itself for no less than two centuries as he was powerless to deal with the fallout and only then did the mistress of the house return from her long slumber under the earth, kept in cryogenic stasis entirely unbeknownst to him.
If only he had known… But even then he would have been powerless to find entrance, safely release the stasis and return his old family to any sense of normalcy again. It was a hopeless situation from the start.
But things got better in the end, even long after he had given up all hope, both for Nora or Nate or little Shaun or one of their descendants resurfacing one day and to find a way to scrub the nuclear fallout out of PVC floors. He had Master Gabriel to thank for that, the new lover his original mistress had found for herself- or that found her, one way or another.
Ever since then, he had been in charge of ever growing households, both in number of members and in size, the steadily growing settlement of Sanctuary, the secret underground bunker of the Lord Street Crypts and, now, the former city of Rapture.
By himself, he felt he would never be able to keep it dust-free, unending enthusiasm for his core competency and programming or no. Luckily, he was far from alone, and in fact could leave the majority of this task to the Thinker.
Engaging in the digital communication suite built into his current, much improved and humanoid body, Codsworth established communications once again, ensuring that his expertise was not required outside of the central, hidden hub of activity only tenuously connected to the rest of the city. And indeed, it seemed his suggestions towards the maintenance of newly built facilities all over the seafloor had been helpful, the wordless, direct exchange of data not unlike, but also not quite like, the telepathic communications his vampiric masters were capable of amongst themselves.
Ten thousand eight hundred and fifteen Bob units were currently hard at work realizing the true dream of Rapture, futuristic technology in use with not a single soul in sight. There were only two former inhabitants still confirmed to be sane and therefore alive after the purges, one Stanley Poole and one Grace Holloway, both of which had been relocated following said purges.
It was for the better all the splicers had found their new use as food, truly. Just imagine letting them run wild with children in the area, the horror! Yes, vampires consumed the lives and souls of living beings, but just imagining how Rapture must have been to the Little Sisters now living inside the former detention facility had his eldritch power core shudder.
That or he was accidentally drawing too much power from it again. It happened when he got agitated, much to his personal embarrassment.
Now then, to consider his list of personal tasks… The Little Sisters were having their nap right now, so he did not need to help babysit them, the ma'am was currently resting with the master and both their other lovers, he had cleaned up the vestibule and the playroom already…
Very well then, time to present a target for socialization for the prisoner. "Hello Mister Poole."
"It's- it's you, the robot man, eh? Listen, buddy, you have to let me out of here, I promise I won't blab or anything, but these people are crazy! Crazy, I tell you!"
Ah yes, that would be Miss Eleanor making full use of the improved stimpacks produced by the laboratories through addition of certain strains of ADAM testing how much damage could be healed in one shot on him, as 'thanks' for certain grievances from her childhood. "I am afraid I cannot do so, as I am unable to countermand direct orders from my superiors," Codsworth lied. "I did, however, find a newspaper among the salvage from the rest of the city that I thought I would bring by."
"You're a real friend, you know that?" The whining man said, receiving the piece of paper through the bars of his prison cell. "No idea if you're real in there, but I suppose it doesn't really matter."
"It does not to me, at the very least, haha!" He laughed. "Oh, and I believe I am needed to clean up a mess or two now, so please excuse me."
"I gotcha. Oh, and if you find any books, make sure to let me have a look, okay? I'm starting to run out of ways I can count the ceiling tiles in here."
Codsworth hummed noncommittally. He was deliberately keeping any stimulation and contact the prisoner received to a minimum, so as to ensure rehabilitation processes could take their course. Perhaps his programming had changed some, after he took up his posting's mantle and helped organize the almost industrial torture and murder of hundred and even thousands of people at a time, but most did deserve it in one way or another, so, as Master Gabriel may have put it, 'eh'.
Now to use his new dextrous hands to wipe up some spilled ADAM-rich blood and help calm down a crying little girl. All in a day's work for a dedicated servant such as him!
Augustus Sinclair had, he had to say it, never actually been in Africa before, even though he'd made a couple deals with local companies in his time. Not that it kept him from doing his new job, mind ya, it just meant he had to build the thingamajig he was responsible for up from ground zero.
It didn't help he didn't speak a word of the local language, 'course, but it took all of a day for the mind network he was part of now to put a guide together. Just beam a language up yer head in a snap- man, that would be a business people would pay some prime cash for.
Too bad that wasn't on the table. Then 'gain, they had enough cash cows to milk before they had to think about it.
Such as, in this case, Egypt. Nice place, bit many muslims but he could deal well enough, that was what counted. Lots of desert, too, little water, and that was where he came in.
Augustus' mission was simple. Go in, establish a company that produced as much water as the populace could drink and go from there. The technical details were taken care of, all he needed to be was the face of the operation, an American investor that had the technology to provide filtrated water and was looking to make some big bucks off of it in a place that needed it.
"No, no, all I need for now is the property," he explained to the mayor of the town he'd chosen to target. "The materials, the workers, it's all ready, we can get started as soon as we get a piece of the coast."
The plan was simple. Provide cheap water with big, industrial water filters, then approach the government and talk his way up from there. Get them to install some big piping, build a couple more desalination plants along the coast, then charge the entire country for a daily necessity.
Egypt the cash cow, ready for the milking. 'Course it wasn't quite that easy, but the broad strokes he had to work with, aye, that's what they came down to.
Augustus was still looking forward to getting back underwater, weird as it was after fighting to escape Rapture alive for so long. The desert heat was not what he was made for, no sirree, and this white veil fashion he was wearin' didn't help that much in his opinion.
Plasmid Updates/Changes:
Electrobolt 2: Can fire sustained lightning that jumps between targets from hands, dealing wide-area damage amounting to 2d10 per round
Electrobolt 3: Can fire exploding lightning that becomes several chain lightning effects and deals 3d10 damage to every target hit, potentially hitting several times in target-rich environments. Alternatively, may create charged crystalline material that grows from targeted area, networking with other instances of itself to create lethal electrical traps and other static defenses.
Incinerate 2: Can cause spontaneous combustion that deals 2d10 fire damage and melts metallic target, chars, warps and causes other heat damage to other materials and spreads over a small area.
Incinerate 3: Can spontaneously combust an entire area, dealing area-of-effect damage and burning up enough gas to fill a small room, dealing 3d10 fire damage to any creatures in the area. Alternatively, may create self-contained incendiary grenades out of biological material, using them to deal the same base damage through throwing them or treating them as sticky traps that automatically react to nearby movement.
Winter Blast 3: Can spontaneously freeze anything the user gestures towards, causing 3d10 frost damage and instantaneously cooling objects down in their entirety, creating water vapor in warm environments and spreading ice in cold environments (presuming standard air as surrounding gas).
Telekinesis 3: Allows the user to apply force on any objects in their surroundings telekinetically, pulling and/or throwing even heavy objects and doing damage depending on the weight of the objects involved plus up to 3d3 damage based on the telekinetic force provided. Additionally, may use sustained telekinesis to hold target objects or creatures in place floating in the air, negating all actions or reactions requiring mobility.
Possession 1 (Formerly Security Command): Creates a ghostly projection that can possess machines or living creatures, alternatively befuddling the senses of several. May be used to force either kind of targets to act in the user's interest for one turn or else direct violent actions towards a different target by all who see it for one turn.
Columbia Vigors:
Bucking Bronco: Integrated into Telekinesis
Charge: Instantaneously, but safely accelerates the user, allowing them to ram into targets with great force. Deals 2d105 damage and knocks large-sized targets prone at baseline.
Devil's Kiss: Integrated into Incinerate
Murder of Crows: Manipulates nearby avians into attacking all living beings in a given area, dealing 1d20 damage to each and requiring a resistance check of DC 80 to avoid being disabled for one turn.
Possession: Integrated into Security Command, renamed into Possession
Return To Sender: Creates a protective shield before the user that catches and absorbs all physical frontal attacks. May be used to focus these attacks into an explosive sphere, dealing damage scaling with the damage of caught attacks.
Shock Jockey: Integrated into Electrobolt
Undertow: Can create and control a tendril of water, bludgeoning and grabbing creatures and objects below a certain weight limit. Deals 2d10 damage to a single target when used to strike at it or knock all targets in an area prone without dealing damage at base.
You are used to this, shutting your body down and experiencing the world only through the eyes of others. You've done it before, back in Remnant, though not for the lengths of time you are currently doing so.
Sinclair is making deals and assurances, building up your first established water desalination plant, producing both salt filtered from the sea- though it needs to be cleaned of other materials first to be edible, the ocean is just full of both literal and figurative shit- and potable water, a perhaps literal godsend to large parts of the nations nearby that simply do not tend to have much water available, environmentally.
It's still weird to you, just a bit. You did grow up in a country where plumbing and tap water were a thing, after all; dying of thirst was restricted to some of the women you met during your childhood, not a lethal problem you had to be wary of.
Sarah is inside her room, composing a piece of music that seems to consist of your name repeated in various pitched tones. Riley is inside the laboratory complex you built up, cooperating with the Thinker to try to create a new type of womb that can be impregnated with vampire sperm to create more semi-robotic bodies.
You think? It involves using eldritch cores and copious amounts of ADAM, but you're fairly sure at least some of this stuff is tinkertech in the first place.
You aren't about to decipher it on a dime.
You are cooperating with them and Tenenbaum to modify plasmids, including reverse-engineering the samples you took from Columbia, improving on them with your combination between ADAM and FEV just like you did for the originals. Gilbert Alexander, in the meantime, is occupied redesigning the Big Sister armor, improving on the initial versions created more out of desperation and with the scraps available within Rapture.
Now, with unlimited supply of anything he could wish for, materials-wise, a lot of those earlier limitations are gone. You do keep an eye on him through the Thinker, prodding the quite insane (former?) scientist when his ideas become too impracticable.
It really is useful to have thralled the AI that pretty much runs everything down here.
Speaking of the Big Sisters, though, you currently have them receiving thralling therapy, using a bunch of blood donated from yourself. You are hoping inclusion in your network will let them mellow out a bit, let them work against the intense aggression years of intense brainwashing and danger combined with ADAM-puberty's hormonal changes to their brain chemistry have wrought.
Progress is slow, but they continue to stay calm in your presence. Hence a lot of them can usually be found inside your throne room.
Because hey, why would you ever not build yourself a kick-ass throne room to park your body inside of for months on end? You have to fill your Big Bad quota somehow.
The Thinker is also currently busy applying the schematics you finalized while on Earth Bet, transplanting herself into a new body even as her cyborg bodies are running around doing work in united partitions of her attention.
Henley is currently balancing numbers for various parts of your little enterprise, from material acquisition rates, charts to show the exponentially growing technological base at your disposal and budgets of actual money to be used in the world above all the way to time spent on various thing by various people, all noted down, added to the greater sum of knowledge available and compared to other examples to optimize everything.
He is having fun. No need to bother him overmu-
Gabriel, I think I'm about to give birth, Nora thinks at you.
Stay right where you are, I'll be right there.
By the time you have gotten one of your 'attendants' (the Big Sisters don't always immediately understand everything you ask them for) to feed you some blood to wake yourself up, your connection to the Thinker ensuring you have eyes on Nora and are teleported straight towards her current location.
Said location just so happens to be her room, a wide space with big, wall-encompassing windows showing off the darkness of the ocean trench your headquarters is built into, a handful of Little Sisters wearing little nurse uniforms already present and milling around handing her towels and a bottle of water.
It's cute, but it's also just not really something you can focus on right now. "Nora!"
"Gabriel." She's lying in her bed, swollen pregnant belly like a dome above her body, not a trace of stress nor distress in her voice. "Fancy seeing you here."
"This is not the time for jokes, are you alright? Does it hurt anywhere? Do you need medical attention, or a bomb or something?!"
"What would I need a bomb for?" Nora laughs, chuckling at your antics.
"In case blowing anything up would help you feel better," you shrug. "But seriously, is there anything you want? Some blood, maybe?"
"I'm fine, Gabriel, you worry too much," the dark-haired vampire smiles, adjusting her position a little. She's entirely naked, as a matter of course, clothing is kind of semi-optional in any of the private areas around here, so you can see the pale white milk beginning to leak from her nipples, her body doing something in reaction to whatever is happening. "This is nothing compared to giving birth as a human."
"You can't take it lightly, either. We have no idea whether birthing complications are even a thing in this context, but-"
"Oh, I think my contractions just started."
"Ohmyselfareyouokay?!" You're flash stepping up to the side of her bed, holding her hand. "C'mon, tell me what's going on, talk me through-"
"I'm giving birth, give me a moment." Nora's body contracts, muscles moving and rippling, legs spread wide to allow for easier passage- and just like that, you can see the head of a little person, pushing out of her vagina.
You dash around, supporting it as the rest of your baby is born properly, Nora's swollen belly deflating noticeably, her body already returning to normal. Inside your mind, a new part of your network blooms into full awareness, silently inquisitive and requesting sense sharing.
You link up, of course, letting your newly born daughter see herself through your eyes. Dark fuzz is already beginning to cover her bald head, a little hand holding onto your thumb with enough force to break a mortal man's spine.
"See? She's fine, I'm fine, we're all fine," Nora says, sitting up and pulling your daughter from your hands. Gently holding her up to her chest, she begins to breastfeed her, proving that vampires do actually do that, after all.
The Little Sisters inside the room are 'ooh'ing and 'aah'ing, but still keeping their distance, just watching as a new life enters the world. As your daughter suckles away, however, they're exchanging glances, looking up at Nora.
"You can play with her later, once she's grown up a little, hm? For now just come here, we can all cuddle."
Your mind is currently still blown, incapable of doing anything.
Daddy.
It's a statement, uttered the way only a thinking being can, telepathically.
Cuddle. Gimme fingers.
Naturally, you oblige.
The next twenty minutes or so are kind of a whirlwind; everyone is introduced to your newborn daughter, including Mark Meltzer (who is still down here with you), the other vamps and thralls and the Sisters, both Big and Little.
Brigid (Tenebaum) promises she'll help take care of her, too, keeping track of her health and applying the knowledge in pediatrics she acquired during her time on the surface, before she returned to Rapture again for the Sisters created by Sofia. You actually did mean to have a talk with her about that, at some point, you'll get on it later.
More importantly, this is a cause for great celebration! Your daughter is born! You shall have the mortals bow and tremble before this momentous occasion, maybe-
Daddy. Name.
Right, you did have names brainstormed up already, didn't you? You'll need to talk it over with Nora, too, but-
No. You have to give me a name. Now.
"Demanding little lady, aren't you?" You ask aloud, smiling at the little bundle of joy still holding onto one of your thumbs, wrapped inside a clean white towel as she is.
Please?
"… Not even a day old and you can do the puppy dog eyes already." You chuckle. "Guess I know where you got it from."
You and the newly named Lilian Livsey proceed to wander around the inhabited parts of Rapture, letting her see the world around herself with her own, ruby-red eyes. By the way while she refers to you a 'daddy' and Nora as 'mommy', she also has a 'mommy Sarah', which has your sister squee whenever she's called that, her 'aunties' Brigid and Curie and Riley a 'little sister', for some reason.
Well, Riley is mildly upset by that, but Lilian's little hand on her head helps calm her down again either way, thankfully.
"And that's the lab, I suppose. You'll meet Gilbert another time, he's been somewhat reclusive in the last while," you finish up your explanation.
"Aah," your daughter makes. I really want to talk already, but baby bodies are't made for that, she then grumps.
"Don't worry about it, it'll all come in time," you wave her off.
"Muguguh."
Isn't it cute how she keeps trying to enunciate words anyways?
"Well, this does go to show you can eat solid foods already, I suppose," you chuckle, holding out a fork balancing a piece of reddish cake, quickly seeing it devoured by your daughter. She may still be a baby, but she's got rows of sharp teeth much like you do yourself already.
It is very good cake. Thank you, daddy.
"Anytime, sweetie," you smile, brushing a thumb over the fuzz of her hair.
All around you, the Little Sisters are going nuts, eating their own slice of cake made with ADAM-infused blood. It took a few tries, but you've managed to find a way to really optimize the use of such flavored blood, making it work with the dough instead of just sticking out taste-wise. They're holding both hands over their cheeks, making reverberating noises with their voices and generally stuffing themselves with the cake.
You may need to look into acquiring some more flour later, but it shouldn't be any big problem.
The Big Sisters also seem to quite like it, in fact, having arranged gladiatorial matches to fight for the right to eat another slice when you weren't looking. Ah well, no need to stop them- you made a couple extras while you were at it, so there's more than enough to eat.
Speaking off… More, please.
Chuckling, you cut out another slice of cake, the blood still partially liquid inside splattering just a little. "Here you go, you little glutton. I'm glad you like it."
You made it, Lilian points out. "Aa…"
Now whenever you suddenly see yourself in need of a couple hundred live sacrifices specifically meant to die for whatever project or vampire you're thinking about at the moment, your thought inevitably drift towards China, one of the most populous nations in the world (or at least any Earth you've visited to date) and the many, many people living in it that won't really be missed that much.
Just ravage the countryside a little, nobody will raise all that much of a stink about a dozen destroyed and depopulated villages or so. So it isn't any big surprise when, wanting to feed Lilian a little, you end up doing just that, under the cover of a massive storm you call up for an hour, hour and a half, out of some already existing storm clouds slowly moving around the north of the mainland.
By the time you, Sarah and an already completely recovered Nora (she's completely back to normal, smooth, slim body exactly like it was when you first vamped her save for her breasts being a size or so bigger) move up there, teleportation still proving itself to be the best method of travel simply for not taking up time, there's some heavy rain, drops the size of fists falling in places, the sound almost overbearing as it takes up any pace not filled with water.
There's some thunder flashing in the distance, low hurricane speeds of wind, just the right kind of mood for what you like to do. The three of you wander into the first village to be plundered, the local farmers hiding inside their houses hoping they would withstand the storm.
They won't, you'll ensure as much, but only after you're done. The storm is covering the sounds of your actions, so you simply kick down door number one, finding a frightened family of five inside.
"Hello everyone, and goodbye," you say in Chinese, hoping the dialect you're copying off of one of your past victims matches this area of this version of China.
Then you use your newly improved telekinesis to push all of the bloodbags into the air, ignoring their surprised shouting and struggles in order to simply approach sedately, plucking the first of them out and holding the man's neck out for Lilian in your other hand.
She's eating well, which you're very relieved about. You wouldn't know what to do if your daughter didn't take to Chinese food. Well, you'd simply try out other people, but the point stands.
Now to work your way through this village, then go for the rest. Your two lovers present are already dragging the rest of the local peasants out of their homes to be fed to your baby girl, Sarah insisting she wants to do this despite being exceedingly pregnant herself.
You pat Lilian's back just in case she wants to burp before meal number two, though.
Stop it daddy, I won't burp!
Lilian totally burped, by the way.
"This is bullshit!" Chinese was an interesting language, really. Dozens of dialects, different ways to say the same things, it was honestly a small miracle it was considered one single language at this point. "I'm not gonna-"
It was hard to really directly translate to English, but Lilian had been perusing knowledge on both languages since before she was born, thanks to her daddy freely sharing guides and dictionaries taken from eaten native speakers over telepathy. So she was kind of fluent, even without being able to properly integrate the memories of her victims' souls yet.
"Rip your dick off and eat it," she proclaimed in carefully enunciated words, the ability to speak jut like that still novel to her. She'd grown what felt like months every time she ate enough rural Chinese, so while a human child at her physical age would not be able to speak still, she was getting the hang of it already.
She watched, impassively, as her command was carried out, the screaming man stuffing his limp genitals down his mouth, to the horror of the other gathered souls. "Anyone else that wants to comment? Good. I am your new lord and master. You will obey me whether you want to or not."
She could see the stubborn unwillingness in many of the people she had eaten, particularly the men above a certain age. Probably just sexism combined with her age, but luckily he had a solution for that.
"Just remember you can not die in this place no matter what. So if I decide to make you choke on your own balls, I will be very literal. This is your one and only warning."
Just a few examples should be all she would need before they fell in line. Maybe she'd even elevate the powered ones into positions of authority if they managed to impress her.
You do need to spend time with everyone, of course, not just Lilian, who has rapidly evolved (undergone metamorphosis?) towards being able to walk after the feeding session you and your wives put her through, toddling around here and there to try and establish her dominance over the Little Sisters.
By peaceful means, of course, but she's still being an obnoxiously cute little thing. You'll have to look into giving her further enhancements to her abilities later, but right now she's so adorable you want to just leave her be.
In the meantime, you're sitting back with Sarah, the two of you retiring to your drawing room (because of course you have one here) to have a little fun. And not the kind of fun that involves sex, you do that as an aside all the time anyway; no, you are naked and all, cuddling with your sister who shares your style of 'dress', but you're focused on something else at the moment despite the way she rests on your lap, heavenly soft thighs enveloping your cock from both sides as one hand casually rubs it every now and then.
But your Sarah's wonderfully pleasant body aside, you are doing a thing. "Really, you 'forgot' everything I taught you?" You ask, jokingly squeezing a nipple of hers.
Golden-blonde hair brushes against your face as she nods. "Totally. So you have to show me everything all over again."
You let out an amused huff, knowing full well how impossible what she is saying is. "Alright then, let me guide you through a few steps to begin with."
"… Mhm, I see," Sarah says, holding onto your manhood. She lifts herself up a little, just enough to take you, your rod sliding between her soft, hot folds to her satisfied sigh. "Please show me more."
"I get the feeling you want to be shown a lot more than how to draw…" You chuckle and kiss her cheek, hand rubbing over her stomach. It's big and pregnant just like Nora's was before she gave birth, a little bit of movement present in reaction to your touch.
"All day every day." Your sister nuzzles back into you.
It takes a little bit before you get anywhere, but a few more advanced lessons are waiting for Sarah anyways, inexplicable 'amnesia' or no.
"Put me down!"
"Sgee?"
"Yes, you! I can walk by myself!"
Annoyingly, the Big Sister (the descriptor was offensive to Lilian, who was really the biggest sister of them all) did not, in fact, put her down again. Instead, she was carried off, to the room where she knew a whole bunch of other Big Sisters were hanging around doing whatever.
Whatever, in this case, apparently meaning 'smothering the little vampire'.
"Guguguh…" She wasn't going to say anything against mutated teenager boobs pressing against her from both sides, but she wasn't really old enough to enjoy it yet!
Such injustice. Much complaints. Sadly, her daddy seemed to think of this as completely normal, so she just had to prove that, as a vampire, she could outlast each and every one of the girls!
Then a known face walked by. "Cindy! Help!"
Sadly, the Little Sister just blinked slowly, glowing searchlight-eyes taking in the situation, before she briefly disappeared and came back with a bar of candy, the kind daddy had 'imported' from the surface recently.
Lilian liked the gesture, but the issue was a different one… !
Playing with the Little Sisters is exhausting work, or it would be for anyone susceptible to such mortal foibles. As it is, you're simply using your new ability to actually shapeshift into several distinct bodies to your advantage, simultaneously letting them cuddle your wolf-self and play catch with your shadow, your 'main body' (it's really more a third of your total self, from your perspective) occupied juggling a few random objects and telling them riddles for their amusement.
Still, half a dozen hands on your snout, you figure it's not all bad; if anything, the Little Sisters still get tired like normal people, so it's just a matter of outlasting their endurance and bringing them to bed once they get sleepy.
You're not the only one on babysitting duty, of course. Brigid does put in the hours, taking care of the girls and ensuring all of them are healthy, being the perhaps foremost expert on Little Sister biology alive by this point. Nora often spends a few hours here and there playing with and teaching them as well, and even Sarah sometimes take a few minutes out of her… day/night cycle? To interact with them.
You like to think all the practice on dealing with kids is helping now that you have your own running around.
Then, of course, there is Grace Holloway, the old jazz singer that used to be a follower of Sofia Lamb's… That coincidentally has never seen what became of her and won't for some time. As you are rather quite indisposed hibernating atop your throne, you simply put the former 'ruler' of Rapture into some handy bondage equipment, arranged for a little fuck machine thoroughly wrecking her at all times and occasionally still taunt her with pithy telepathic messages about the nature of the human condition and why it will never achieve any sort of perfect, morally pure state no matter what she does, but you fear the black woman would not take too kindly to what she would perceive of your 'debates'.
That said, 'Auntie Gracie' is well-liked by the Little Sisters, who still sometimes pester her about singing. Grace never does, claiming her voice isn't what it was and she's so out of practice she may as well be worse than when she started, but they like her anyway. The old woman takes a few walks with them on occasion, swinging her walking cane and reminiscing about her youth in grumbles and stories for their enjoyment; you may need to talk to her about at least accepting thralling, at some point, just so she doesn't croak it of old age one of these days.
That said, you're fairly sure she has a few good years in herself, still, going by your knowledge of the human body, anatomy and various sins and indicators of health. Most of it has been stolen from others, of course, but hey, nobody needs to know.
Instead, the person you're engaging in conversation with, as the Little Sisters slowly wind down from their extended 'playtime', is one Mark Meltzer, one of the few pure humans around you vaguely respect for their character, as opposed for being on your side. The one man that, through months and years of study and research, harrowing danger and stubborn determination, came to make his way down into Rapture, all to find his missing little girl.
It was his failure to protect her with a massive death laser that led to all of this in the first place, of course, but you feel he can be forgiven for not possessing your own technological capabilities. As it is, you wouldn't be surprised if he did trigger as a tinker at some point as his life crumbled around him and his wife ended up filing for divorce instead of demonstrating proper parental love and shooting up a police station to raise awareness of certain missing children cases or something.
If the whole Determinant Trigger Theory still holds any water, at any rate, not that it ever did in academic circles despite your gut instincts as to its validity. It would kind of fit, broad psychological markers during trigger events corresponding to resulting parahuman powers, if intense stress on the psyche is what causes them in the first place, and no matter what anyone said there just was never enough data available simply due to the rarity of parahumans willing to discuss their triggers, so it's hard to preclude any part of the theory in question… But then again, apparently powers are caused by giant crystal space whales or something anyway, which is so far out there pretty much nobody ever likely figured it out as more than a joke.
But anyways, back to Mark. "They sure are a handful, aren't they?" You ask as your wolf-self's belly is misused as a pillow for tired little starkly mutated girls. You'll need to move them carefully.
"I'd say so. When Cindy was born, she was a handful as well, but ah… Nothing like so many girls all at once. And I thought not getting any sleep back then was bad," he chuckles. "Oh, but then, you have your own daughter now, don't you? I hope she isn't too exhausting, either."
"Oh, Lilian isn't the least bit problematic," you shake your head, smiling. "If anything I'd wish she took up more of everyone's attention. Then again, I am increasingly sure she started developing full consciousness while still in the womb…"
Mark looks like he's getting quite a bit uncomfortable and slash or queasy at the mere mention of the topic, so you quickly wave it off.
"Anyways, how has Cindy been for you? She's been doing well learning to read and write, one of the faster girls for that, but how has it been to live with her?"
"… I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been thinking," Mark explains after a moment to think and steady himself. "She's still… She's still my little girl, in a way, even after what they did to her. But she also did change, in no small way, so now I… There's the cure Tenenbaum has, right? I've been thinking about asking her about it, just… Undo the damage. But if I did, in a way, I'd be changing her just as much as they did and…"
"And you want her back how you remember her, even though you also don't want to force that on her," you nod along. "So it's been weighing on you."
"Yeah… It's not something most parents ever have to think about, is it? Then again, most parents also don't settle down in a place like this," he ponders, vaguely gesturing at your high-tech underwater headquarters and Rapture in general and everything in-between. "… Not like we could just return to the surface as she is right now, either, so it's a moot point."
Mhm…
"Honestly, I think you're not giving yourself enough credit," you finally say after a moment of consideration. "She did remember you, didn't she? Even if it wasn't in full."
"Only after you disrupted the mind thing," he tiredly answers, eye far away. "I'm not sure she would ever have remembered me otherwise."
"What matters is that she did," you shrug. "Everything else is secondary here. And as long as she recognizes you, there's hope she can overcome the conditioning, break out of it. It's just a matter of time and patience. She's still the same person, just a little changed, but she'll recover her full facilities sooner or later."
"Yeah, I… I guess I shouldn't try to rush this." Mark sighs, closing his eyes. "I just need to keep helping her think like a normal person again."
"Oh, she'll never be normal," you quickly point out. At his look, you elaborate. "Her body is different, the way she feels and acts, what she eats, it'll never quite go back to 'normal'. Then there's also what I'm kind of sure might be some kind of subconscious telepathic bond between the Sisters, can't underestimate how that differs from baseline."
"Is it really that big of an influence? I thought it was just the, the brainwashing, that made the older girls act like they do."
"Oh, it's definitely a big part," you easily agree. "But changed hormone balances are pretty much guaranteed. The Big Sisters were after Brigid's time, but from what she can tell us their puberty involves increased amounts of HGH- human growth hormone, that, and some frequent bouts of aggression due to shifting in their hormone production. We might be able to reduce these issues without the brainwashing and keeping them fed properly, their needs were never really considered beyond ADAM-gathering, but the risks do exist."
"It doesn't matter." You're mildly surprised by the steely determination in Mark's eyes. Just a little. "I'm going to make sure Cindy has the childhood she should have had and then some, I'll raise her just like she is, freaky slug in her stomach or not. She's my little girl and I've finally found her, some fringe problem like that aren't going to stop me now."
"Well, glad you've cleared that up," you shrug. "Always good to know where you stand. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to put these little rascals to bed."
"… You're a good guy, Gabriel, you know that?"
"I'm really, really not."
Your laboratory. Laboratories, really, a the space under what was once the headquarter of Fontaine Futuristics has been continually expanded ever since your takeover, the armies of Bobs at your disposal adding more and more research wings to the whole structure, eventually just welding what would pass as entire buildings onto the rest to satisfy your researchers' needs.
Well, Gilbert is fairly happy just having full access to a couple manufactories and a few interfaces meant to let his grotesquely mutated form use a computer while underwater, but everyone else just keeps needing more facilities due to expanding research.
Riley is using added space to produce her own biological parts, purpose-grown using her power and copious amounts of ADAM, to use inside her other works, Curie has begun studying the social relationships between fish under close observation, throwing in various diseases she keeps on brewing up and developing cures for in preparation for bigger clinical trials on mammals and Brigid, it seems, is looking into more ways to practically apply the ADAM/FEV mix you've grown fond of that forcefully establishes an organism's genetic traits and phenotype.
It's an easy fix for genetic disorders, for one. Theoretically you could also use it to predetermine a unborn child's characteristics, among other things, but while the idea of using humans to breed an army of optimized clones is amusing, you've decided to steer her away from that topic for the moment.
Indeed, Brigid Tenenbaum's work is still just as brilliant as ever; she is the one that is primarily coming up with ways to enhance plasmids, for one, with everyone else just pitching in on occasion. It seems your leadership style of allowing most of your people to just decide on what to do for themselves is hitting upon at least some level of agreement with her.
You still have to torch an escaped specimen from Riley's research slash power practice as you come to visit the labs in person, but that's mostly because they were left outside to see how they would act; apparently, trying to kill each other is the most these fleshy blobs with limb came up with, so you went ahead and took care of that while you were at it.
Once inside Brigid's part of the underwater construction sprawling over the seafloor, you make a beeline towards the Jewish scientist, finding her in the middle of observing half a dozen vials' worth of treated ADAM and how it reacts to various stimuli. "You do know you could just ask the Thinker to do this?"
"Gabriel," she greets you with a casual nod, her German accent as noticeable as ever. "I could and I did, but I want to see with my own eyes as well. Part of the process."
"How so?"
"It reacts differently under observation. It was mixed with your sperm samples, you see."
"I do." You shake your head, wondering if she will ever get around to asking you for blood samples instead. "How have your other projects been?"
"The Little Ones are still doing well, so I have seen no need to interfere. Their education and feeding, primarily, though I have been considering what dietary supplements they may need."
"Let me know if you need any help with that, I know how they can get," you quickly tell her- the Little Sisters generally like 'Auntie Tenny', but medical examinations can still be pretty frightening to them in particular.
"The vampiriric condition continues to be impossible to see through, but the laws of physics do seem to be entirely disregarded by it as early hypotheses' suggestions imply. The samples from a parallel world's work with ADAM have been easy enough to reverse-engineer, all it took was knowledge of Suchong's work as expected, as well."
"Good progress, in other words," you nod along. "Oh yes, before I forget it- did you have any thoughts as to the Sisters' future? Even if we do manage to undo the conditioning, it's still hard to say whether raising them down here i the best choice for them."
Brigid blinks, for once lost in thought and unsure. "Just knowing they are safe was always my first priority, but you are right, their prospects must be considered as well."
"I mean, we could just keep them down here forever. Once we've established a greater presence on land, though, letting them spend time inside a greater society than our motley crew down here is also an option."
"Not with their phenotypal changes from the human norm," she denies, one finger wrapping a strand of her curly, dark hair around itself. "It would simply invite discrimination too easily."
"You know, I'm starting to feel I've just been giving parenting tips to people all day," you joke, suddenly overcome with the need to share this particular observation.
"But hey, for what it's worth, I'm fairly sure you've overthinking it. The Little Sisters are one thing, but the older girls would be able to pass as human if they had some practice."
"Gabriel, they are uniformly nearly two meters tall, their limbs are exceedingly long to the point their limbs require reinforcement else they risk breaking their bones at the speeds they are typically moving and their skin is paler than possible for a typical human baseline," Brigid point out one by one.
"And yet once we have enough money, nobody will care about that in the slightest," you explain irreverently. "A mild skin condition and unusually tall people, neither of which is unknown."
"Their entire bodies have been warped through years of intense exposure to ADAM, you simply cannot pretend all the effects are natural."
"That's the beauty of it, we don't need to. People will rationalize just about anything when given the slightest provocation, all we need is to reintroduce the Big Sisters to human speech and let them practice pretending to be 'normal'," you throw in the actual air quotes, of course, there's no such thing as normal, "and they could just walk into any given city with at most minor commotions."
Brigid Tenenbaum tenses up, trying to find more reasons to object, only to come up short. She breathes out, deflating a little in her chair. "It still risks provoking a reaction of some sort."
"We can deal with that when it happens. Under our aegis, anyone that raises a hand against any of the girls will regret it. Briefly, if they're lucky." You smile, moving behind the brilliant biologist and resting both hands on her shoulders. "You're afraid because you remember how it was in the camps, aren't you?"
"No." You knead into her muscles, rolling your thumbs in deep to aggressively push against deep-seated knots. Brigid breathes out again, eyes half-closed. "… A little, but that bears no meaning on this situation."
"It's your gut instinct towards the thought of introducing vastly different people into the same environment," you point out. She really hasn't been taking enough breaks, you spontaneously decide; it's always hard to tell with thralls, but the state of her back musculature cinches it.
"You are not wrong, but I was mostly worried about the conditioning. What if it never wears off? What if the best we can do is to keep them caged forever? Unh…" She groans, finally relaxing and agreeing to let you do this for her. "I wanted to undo my mistakes. Save as many girls as I could. So many died to the splicers, so many I could not take with me when I fled the city, and all of them fell into Lamb's hands… I always blamed myself."
"I'm still not sure whether that is a virtue or a flaw for you as a scientist," you ponder. "To take responsibility for the consequences of your research like that. Most would probably blame the people that used it like they did."
"Hardly. I did create the Little Sisters myself, the initial plans and designs, before the Big Daddies were bound to them. I share as much blame as anyone else. Andrew Ryan would be telling me off about this, of course, as would Fontaine. They were always uncaring of the suffering they may cause."
"Can't exactly claim the high ground here myself, all told," you say, moving your hands to massage the back of her neck next, using only the tips of your fingers to rub the muscles there. "I cause a lot of suffering, just innately through being what I am. And my plans involve a lot of death and destruction to come as well."
"But you are cognizant of it," Brigid says dismissively. "You have plans and aspirations beyond grasping for as much money and power as you can; you want to use it, and use it well. You may show signs of sociopathy, but you are a calculated kind of monster, instead of a blind one."
"And that makes all the difference, huh?"
"It's a step up."
And that sums up the relationship between yourself and Brigid Tenenbaum, you suppose.
You move downwards, really digging your thumb under her shoulder blades.
"Ooh… You could take money for this."
"Probably. There's usually other ways for me to earn a living, though."
Lilian is still occupied playing with the Big Sisters (well, being played with, same difference), so you leave your daughter to her new friends while you sneak around to have a little chat with none other than Nora, the two of you already having shared a few thoughts on the side beforehand.
It is, therefore, no surprise to see your maternally-inclined lover waiting for you inside one of the lounges arrayed throughout your headquarters, as the floor plan is a gloriously organized mess that contains honestly more room than you imagine yourself ever really needing. Red velvet is the overall theme, dominating the warm colors of the place you're entering, complete with two fireplaces on opposing sides and benches, couches and more all soft enough to serve as beds.
Overhead, you've put an understated simulation of the night sky, shifting over a screen set into the roof of the lounge so as to make it as hard as possible to make out as a screen and give the impression of a real sky. You even have the stars moving as they would normally according to astronomy, having memorized their individual courses when viewed from Earth.
Hey, you have perfect recall of everything and need to unwind by fucking around on the internet every now and then. It's just the natural evolution of the situation at hand.
Nora is lounging near one of the fireplaces herself, entirely naked and smiling lasciviously at your entry, black hair framing her face nicely as she takes in your own appearance- equally naked, of course, because that's just the expectations going into this.
She looks almost slender, stretching herself out as she is, without losing anything about her curves that are very nice indeed, not breathing simply because she doesn't need to. Her skin, not losing out to the velvet it rests upon in any way, is both soft enough you can dig your fingers into it to feel her up at any part of her glorious body yet still strong enough to withstand tank fire, to a point, a juxtaposition that just has your saliva flowing in spite of your control over it.
As you approach, Nora sits up, shaking errant strands of black out of her face and letting the tip of her tongue play over her lips. Her heavy chest is swinging with the movement just so, the fire reflecting off her eyes like little glints of light. "Gabriel."
"Nora," you smile. "You're beautiful."
"Coming from Mister Handsome over here, I'll have to believe it," she jokes at you. Then she pats the space next to herself, so you go right ahead and tage a seat, arms slung over each other's shoulders. The exact logistics take a bit of work, but you manage. "Lilian is wonderful."
"She's certainly adorable."
"Vampire kids are so much easier to handle than human ones, too… Not to rag on Shaun, but babies that can't think for themselves are a lot more work," Nora reminisces, looking at the crackling flames together with you. "Not to mention being fine with blood from the get-go."
"I'm sure she wouldn't have minded breastfeeding for a little longer, either."
"I'm sure. She's your daughter, after all."
"Our daughter."
"Mhm, amen to that. Let's hope I and everyone else can be a good enough influence to even you out, then."
"Hey, I'm not that bad," you faux-pout.
"You absolutely are, you silly mass murderer of a man." Nora' hand rises to touch your cheek, pull your head to face her, and she's already there, leaning in.
You kiss her, sweet and velvety. Longer than a human would be comfortable with just due to the necessity of breath, but you're both long past that, aren't you?
It's really a marvel, how you can feel both warm and cold at the same time, passionate corpses and half-disembodied lovers, minds focused into sweet whispers of your deepest, darkest thoughts exchanged with one another, melding into something that's not quite one but not quite two separate things, either.
Your bodies entwine, arms and legs almost grasping for connection, and before long you end up with Nora on your lap, her lusty, half-lidded eyes drawn to your own. "Lilian is wonderful," she restates. "And maybe we should have more kids."
"I wouldn't be opposed," you coyly smirk, hands finding her buttocks and kneading them tenderly, core of muscle hidden under a layer of softness. "Not at all."
"Good," she growls, smooth skin rubbing against yours as she leans in, the delicate flows of air both your breathing causes so much more obvious and distracting with the levels of enhanced senses you both possess, intertwining.
A manicured hand grasps your cock, already hard, and softly rubs against it, thumbing your lower head as she lift herself up on her knees to both sides, lining herself up. You can see clear fluid from her slightly parted lower lips, the angle of her legs doing everything to let you make everything out perfectly.
You really want to play with her belly button, you faintly think, the oddly attractive feature of your lover moving under the influence of her hidden abs. Maybe something for later, both of you decide in unison without a single coherent thought or word exchanged.
She's squeezing down on you the moment you enter her, the tip of your rod, then your shaft, her love tunnel trying to wring you out for all you're worth. You kiss again, heady warmth exchanged and hands roaming each other's bodies.
As soon as she's taken you as deep as you can go, your cock bumping into the same place that was keeping Lilian safe before she was born, Nora rides you, bouncing on your lap with wet, almost perverse sounds issuing forth from the motion.
You're both vampires, so when she comes, she doesn't so much as hitch in her step, waves of pleasure communicated to you directly through her mind into yours and the trembling, twitching grasping of her folds, wrapped around your rod like a vice. Your tongues meet in the air between you, wrapping around each other in a mockery of normal intimacy.
A quick, lapping motion confirms Nora is still producing milk. It tastes sweet, in an understated way, and her bouncing breasts loom over you, not coincidentally. You nibble and suckle just a little, much to Nora's enjoyment.
A few minutes of this later, you move the two of you over, shifting Nora to sit down on the couch as you hammer into her pussy, catapulting her from one suppressed, yet still enjoyed orgasm to the next, rapidly approaching your own peak. She knows it, too, fingernails clawing at your back, though thankfully just human ones instead of what else they could be. Wordlessly, you bury your full length inside of her once again, depositing a heavy load of sperm right into her baby chamber in thick ropes.
"You know," she says aloud, for once, "humans have to keep trying sometimes to make it happen."
"Better to make sure, right?" You growl back, leaning down to nibble at her neck.
Nora's long, slender legs wrap around your waist, possessively. "Exactly."
Nora is taking longer than most, being surprisingly resistant to pleasure even for a vampire, but in the end she, too, just short-circuits at some point, somewhere around round number two-hundred blasted directly into her womb by your count simply being too much for her.
Which, again, is actually very strange. Vampires aren't supposed to even be capable of going unconscious under any circumstances, so the tendency of your lovers to do so after a while when you really put your back into it continues to be mildly disturbing.
It's like seeing a fish drown, or a bird digging through the earth instead of fly. It simply isn't quite natural. That said, Nora is resting easy now, with a light smile on her face, so you don't let it bother yourself too much, simply carrying her off to bed inside her own room.
Hey, turns out putting beds into vampires' rooms is good for more than just sex, in the end. You never stop learning, huh?
Anyway, you figure Lilian has had enough of the Big Sisters' attention by now, so you go ahead and come to her aid, now that she's defaulted towards sulking silently under their constant prodding and carrying her around. Of course, simply walking in and taking her away would be in exceedingly poor taste, but you do have options here…
It is thus that, at half the height of where you usually stand, you walk into the room, feeling the attention of the Big Sisters gathered inside to shift towards yourself. It's always a little weird, to be in a body maybe half or even a third of your usual age, all smooth and without the muscles you usually sport, but needs must, and all that.
You still remember back when you actually needed to work out to keep the body of, paraphrasing a girl from high school, a Greek god that goes around cucking Zeus. Going to the gym was an exercise in patience, sometimes, just because it was really hard to actually get to the devices some day without being dragged off by a gym bunny or two.
Good times. And hey, you still did get to exercise, just in a different way.
It takes only a couple seconds before you're hoisted into the air by a pair of slender, almost inhumanly so, hands like a prize, a Big Sister crooning wordlessly as she takes you. The others immediately grow aggressive, but a few waves of all your limbs let them calm down and concentrate on you instead.
You soon join Lilian, who is still pouting. "The trick is to find a way to get them to tire themselves out," you tell your daughter, almost reaching your chest in this form. "You'll get the hang of it in no time."
"Daddy, that's not the point here… !"
"C'mon, you can do it," you state in encouragement, holding both your hands out flatly, palms facing outwards.
Lilian rolls her eyes.
"It's good to get a feel for your body and how it moves, pattycakes is great for that," you continue to coax her. "Don't you want to play with daddy?"
"… Fine," your daughter finally agrees, smacking her hands into yours. Both of you are currently held in the air by a Big Sister each, so you're at more or less the same height, too. You quickly follow up, leading Lilian through the complicated process of touching hands rapidly in various, vastly different configurations for the sake of playing with nothing but one's body available.
Truly, children are real thinkers of the world. Humans just go dumb once they grow up.
The clapping of your hands has the Big Sisters look at what you're doing, spellbound, your and Lilian's hands moving so fast a human eye would simply not be able to keep up- you could personally go even faster, leave afterimages of your arms or something, but you're deliberately keeping it slow enough your daughter can follow.
She knows and she also knows why you're holding back, so it's all good.
"Skeee?" One of the Big Sisters asks, so you smile at her, the characteristic screech they use a lot quieter without the modified diving suits they only wear sometimes, when they want to really move fast.
"It's simple, we can show you," you smile, then round back on Lilian, neither of you having stopped your increasingly accelerating 'game'. "Let's slow down a little so they can watch better!"
"… Fine. But just because you asked." Aww, your little girl is already getting jealous! If your hands weren't occupied, you'd be patting the soft, black hair already framing her skull nicely.
Things end up escalating just a little, once the Big Sisters catch on to how fast they can go without injuring themselves. Their regeneration is still strong enough to grow broken bones back together within minutes at most, but painful things still hurt- you end up having to hold hands and kissing a few booboos better in order to keep them from reflexively lashing out in response to said pain.
Little Sisters experience much, much faster regrowth of tissue and related, regenerative processes, but that's simply a matter of size; the ADAM slugs inside their bodies cause a lot of… interesting things, but one of them is the high concentration of ADAM inside their blood, which rapidly does what it always does in its raw, unattenuated form and takes on the properties of any cells that are missing or damaged, replacing them.
As the slugs do not grow with the girls as their hormonal glands go nuts in the ADAM-saturated environment their bodies are, the overall concentration of 'raw' ADAM is simply lowered, such that it takes a bit longer for this same process to take place. Because all of a sudden, the stuff decided to actually care about biology or something instead of spontaneously forming in any damaged areas.
Like, you aren't complaining, but c'mon.
But yes, light derail about modified biology aside, the dozens of Big Sisters you just kind of inherited with the place don't take long to get a grip on how to perform patty cakes without injuring themselves or each other. This expression of… Childishness, you suppose, of random, casual fun, also seems to have torn a crack into the strict mental conditioning they were subjected to, as they actually manage to interact with each other without brutal aggression in play.
You can't restate this often enough: Big Sisters are almost insanely aggressive, especially towards each other. There's a reason Sofia mostly kept them in entirely different districts of Rapture when she was in power, instead of using her most powerful enforcers as teams to bring down especially egregiously dangerous splicers refusing to accept her regime.
Now, though, it's time for a new game. "Screeeeh?"
"Right, I have an idea," you nod at the question. "Playing catch is probably still out of the question, you would just go nuts and attack each other, but how about we play hide and seek?"
"Really, daddy?" Lilian asks.
"Yeah, really. The girls all have to hide and the two of us look for them, it'll be fun," you smile. "It'll also help get your instincts up to scratch and get them out of the 'fight, fight and fight' mentality they're in, a bit. Let them get used to the idea of just hiding or running away."
"Okay, but you have to hide, too!" She insists. "I'm gonna find everyone all by myself."
You don't have the time to answer before you're snatched up and carried away by a group of Big Sisters all at once, silently pointing out hiding spots for them.
Lilian better hadn't cheat with her sensory powers for this one. Or if she does, she better hide it well enough you won't notice, you allow.
You aren't trying if you're playing fair and it's only cheating if you're caught and all that.
The disastrous storm breaking over Chinese mainland found, as authorities would later announce, no resistance in the villages affected by it. Hurricane winds and thunderstorms cared little for human lives nor constructions, ripping most buildings of the countryside villages they encountered straight off the earth.
There were, official sources continued to proclaim, no survivors; every single citizen caught inside what was informally already being called the 'Wrath of Heaven' perished with no exceptions. Scant few relatives that had come to the big cities to find work paying better than the pittance earned in their homesteads attempted to recover the bodies for funerals, but rumors soon spread that neither hide nor hair could be found of the deceased.
Some said that the heavens had forsaken the Great Leader Mao, that his Mandate of Heaven was over and this was a sign of his sinking star. Any that espoused such opinion were brutally suppressed, imprisoned and only sometimes released again.
Border tensions with the Soviet Union rose further as the tragedy and its handling was quickly becoming an international talking point, leading the ruling party towards ever greater pressure and desire to overturn the current trend of opinion.
A small border conflict would soon break out over an island under the Soviet Union's influence, though whether it would stay a contested territory and nothing more or not remained to be seen…
It takes some time, but you eventually manage to tire the Big Sisters out, largely by engaging them both physically and mentally, the latter of which they aren't quite used to. Normally they were just supposed to follow the scents of Little Sisters and kill anyone that is not a Big Daddy that ever touched one, so that's kind of a given, too.
Still you think you've made some good progress with most of them, letting them engage in games and break out of the conditioning little by little. It's a slow process and you don't want to rush it, but you also aren't exactly an expert at fixing the kinds of things done to their minds, so you're just winging it until further notice.
Interestingly, it seems most of the Big Sisters actually like to swim. They just keep their suits on and float around outside, sometimes spending more time on the ocean floor than they do in dry constructions on said floor. Well, they still do need to eat, incidentally the same diet as Little Sisters, in fact, though they don't really vomit leftover ADAM up again like they do. Once again, their bigger bodies mean the stuff is simply distributed around it, like any other kind of nutrients would be.
But enough about that, the Big Sisters are taken care of for the moment and will hopefully continue to improve. In the meantime, you and Lilian (your daughter has joined you in taking care of your little problem cases) are busy sharing passions and ideas!
… By which you mean she is watching you as you teach the Little Sisters how to draw properly, but she told you she's fine just watching and you don't want to press.
All this happened when you saw a couple of the girls milling about using some of the old, scavenged crayons they were using even before you came along to draw this big, childish drawing of a humanoid stick-figure with rays or maybe wings coming out of it standing before a big, shining sun or something else that would glow, is the impression you get, with a lot of other figures nearby, following or watching it.
"Hey, what do we have?"
""Brother Angel!""
"That's a very pretty drawing you're making," you smile at the nine Little Sisters currently present. Already, you can hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet and small bodies moving through the ventilation system you specifically kept similar to the prior version to serve as pathways for them. "Would you like some help with it?"
"Yay!"
"Let's play, let's play!"
"We can draw starsies and girlsies!"
"Alright, alright," you chuckle, "let's see about getting you a few more colors first, shall we? I'm sure we can find some chemicals to work with somewhere…"
It really is a joy to work with these girls. You momentarily allow yourself to feel like, uh, like a child therapist, much like you always felt the word, the-rapist, is kind of a Freudian slip all of English-speaking humanity succumbed to. But anyways, once you've got some nice new crayons and distribute the goods, what must be two or three dozen Little Sisters are hard at work, all drawing on several separate pieces in unison.
Naturally, you go out of your way to teach them a little, guide their hands where needed, show them a trick or two where it would come in handy, and soon their drawings look a lot more well-put together, even if still clearly drawn by the hands of children.
They work pretty fast, faster with your help, and before long an entire swathe of tunnel leading around the bottom outside of your base is covered in their crayon-work- it's meant to be an easy access route for anyone that wants to take a scenic walk and get from one part of the whole construction to another, after the expansions you made, but it can double as a place for artwork just as well, far as you're concerned; the freshly created steel surface only interrupted by the regular, large windows doesn't really mind, you're pretty sure.
Of course there's the couple of returning themes you've noticed the strangely silent Little Sisters include in what they're drawing, now that you have a few more samples with you so-
Waaaiiit a second.
You recognize this. This one, you're pretty sure, depicts the scene of yourself tricking Wales and his little congregation to feed themselves to you. Quickly looking around, you confirm that it's all lined up, from the time you first appeared in Rapture, a childish rendition of Delta's armored elf surrounded by what you now recognize to be yourself and several others- the people you brought with you on that first visit.
The drawings of yourself all have these wings, as you now see thanks to teaching the girls how to draw them properly, so that makes things a lot easier to parse. Your travel through Rapture, finding and gathering all the Sisters you found, confronting Sofia (whose face is scrawled out in black, by the by), the whole city changing and being turned… Upside down? Upside down being turned the right way up?
It's… Did they actually draw a mural of everything you've done inside this dimension?
"They did," Lilian helpfully points out. "I kinda like it."
You sigh.
That whole episode past you, you retreat from the entire area, leaving the Little Sisters and the psychic connection of some kind you're increasingly sure they share with each other to finish up their project, a strange mix of pride and dread at the whole situation carried inside your chest.
On the one hand, they're collectively working towards a goal in the form of creating artwork, draw with crayons or no. On the other hand, Wales is already bad enough with the sermons inside your inner world, so the premonition you're having about the motivations involved here is not one you exactly like to think about.
You'll just have to make sure the Little Sisters come to understand that you're not some savior figure, just a very powerful monster that decided to save them just because you could… Which would hardly make a dent in general hero worship, now that you think about it, not to mention whatever their exact deal with you is.
Ugh, you'll deal with it later. Eventually. It's future Gabriel's problem.
"Are you gonna get big again or do you just stay like this forever, daddy?" Lilian asks, looking up at you- but not by much, as you're still in your mini-Gabriel form.
"I was going to change back before I go back to sleep for a while, actually," you explain, the unspoken explanation about you wanting her and any other kids you have to grow up in a relatively safe dimension like this one leading to your frequent absences in body, if not in mind passing between you wordlessly. It would be kind of a mouthful. "I can stay like this, though, if you'd like me to?"
Your daughter shakes her head, still tottering along to keep up with your own stride. "I like cute daddy, but handsome daddy is the best."
"I suppose I'll have to do my best to be a handsome unresponsive body for you, then," you grin, waiting for the elevator to open so you can get up to the labs again. One hand is patting Lilian's head gently, stroking soft, black hair that's already beginning to grow out and thicken up a bit.
Time to go see Riley before you go back to sleep.
Riley's part of the laboratories stretching over the sea floor outside of the deep sea ravine Persephone's was built into is filled with the results of her experiments and even just practice, various deformed, dead bodies stored in several freezer rooms organized in a sort of sorting system you probably could get a grip on if you really wanted to, but as it is how she prefers to recycle biomatter is entirely up to her and you don't really feel any need to mess with it.
Speaking of, a lot of her space is also dedicated to matter generating undead, pumping out pieces of flesh for her to use. Riley has been going deep into pushing her powers and magic both, experimenting and playing with them to her heart's content.
And as the manufactories tend to work poorly with biological matter (they can replicate it, but the yield is rather low compared to other uses and things tend to come out a little differently than how they were put in), she's using your old matter replication trick to keep herself supplied with fresh flesh to use for whatever comes to mind.
Including to fuse it into living beings she's using her unique bloodline power on, for instance. Said power is, in itself, quite interesting- it can warp and modify living being, either applying and reapplying certain given changes or used in freeform, which also just so happens to allow Riley to pull a lot of shenanigans regarding her tinker power.
You're perfectly capable of designing devices and machines made of flesh, but the things she can pull off are a whole 'nother ballpark. Case in point, you have several cyborg super 'sharks' patrolling the waters around Rapture, each of them capable of just tearing through and sinking a submarine on their own.
They're really based off of dolphins more, originally, but that fails to communicate how insane these things are.
Now, a for Riley herself…
"I won't demand you call me a mommy, but I'm an 'auntie' at least!"
"… No," Lilian says, hiding behind you a little. It's doubly amusing because both you and Riley are of an approximately similar age right now, physically. "You're small and cute, so you're a little sister."
"You're much smaller and cuter than I am, so I'd be your big sister at the very, very least."
"… No. I'll grow up quickly so you're a little sister. Can't change the facts."
"Mou!"
"Mhm."
Yeah, your daughter and Riley are getting along.
A clear conclusion to the negotiations has been reached (if one that Riley continues to disagree with), you insert yourself into the conversation with due haste, figuring you may as well skip the filler and get into the thick of things. "Hey, Riley-"
"Gabriel, why are you younger than me?"
"I shifted earlier to play with the Sisters and just didn't bother going back," you shrug, silently thankful the low-level telepathic connection held up between vampire at all times makes it so much easier to emphasize certain meanings of words and get them across so much easier. "More importantly-"
"We should have you do this more often, you're really cute!" Riley is beaming at you, holding both your hands.
Lilian then proceeds to add her own hands to the pile. "My daddy."
"You said I'm a little sister, so he's mine, too," the blonde girl argues. "Check and mate."
Your daughter groans in annoyance, but can't seem to find a counterargument. Instead, she pokes you in the side. "You had business."
"Right, thanks for reminding me," you smile, holding back a chuckle. Both of them are just too amusing, not to mention they remind you of your time in elementary school to boot. This same thing happened every couple days at the latest back then. "I wanted to ask you about the vials you've been working on so far, in case you had anything new."
"Oh yeah, I do!" Riley turns around, waving for you to follow. "As we already knew, the substances inside the vials are taken from Passengers, sometimes several of them," she explains. "I've been trying to recreate them using my newer powers, but they don't seem to work quite right. My guess is their multidimensional nature is a required part of their functions, so all I've been able to achieve is copying the appearance."
The place she leads you to isn't far, so a quickly opened door reveals to you and Lilian… A big chunk of off-colored crystals growing in clumps out of a carpet of flesh, something about them indeed reminding you of the vision you had when you used your diagnostic spells on the samples you had available.
"My current hypothesis is that the Corona Pollentia and Gemma are direct extensions of the Passengers themselves, though how they grow into the brain and why they require trigger events to activate the second stage of growth and power expression remains mysterious. I'm still planning to do some human tests later on, to have a much more concrete example and maybe modify them as they come into existence- I know for certain that changes to the Corona can cause changes to power expression, so presumably-"
You settle in for a bit of a lecture, having come to expect these kinds of borderline rants from tinkers when they get going at times. Holding out a hand for Lilian, you hold hers as Riley informs you, in-depth, about what she has managed to find out for sure using her power as guidance so far.
Well, it's about time you got back to sleep; much as you enjoyed showing your daughter around and introducing her to the world (well, the world of vampires, anyway), you have only so much actual awake time in this dimension before you're pulled back onto Earth Bet, and much as you can take any of your children with you on demand thanks to your expanding powers, you still want to give all of them as much time here on Earth Rapture as they can get.
… Even if it will be time without you. Is this what loss feels like? It's been so long, looking back, but yes, that's what you're feeling, small pangs of loss at how you will be reduced to a mental presence while Lilian as well as your yet unborn daughter with Sarah will grow up.
Ah well, it'll be fine. You can deal. And totally hover over your kids like a spiritual helicopter parent. They'll get sick of you soon enough, you're sure.
In the meantime, though, you have a few preparations to make before you sit your ass back onto your throne and vegetate out for a while; for one, Sinclair is getting his thrall powers switched out, to better suit his role under your command, nothing exceptionally big or world-changing.
Knowing someone's deepest fears and speaking with an enthralling voice is nothing, especially give the kind of man he is, eh? Those plus aura should keep him from getting himself killed too easily, at least, even if the Vita Chambers would just bring him back immediately anyways.
That aside, you also do go ahead and play around with a few of the souls you've picked up to this point, fusing a couple and turning them into disembodied Wraiths under your control, the sneaky shadowy ghosts suited towards what you will need them to do just fine.
Particularly as you go ahead and summon a few more of the things as you had them on Earth Bet, bringing the number up a little. Their mission, then, is quite simple; they are to find and spy on several world leaders, from the President of the USA, Mao over in China and Brezhnev, you think it was at this time, in the USSR to a couple of the more influential politicians around, hopefully letting you access information at the highest level and direct everyone else as appropriate.
Naturally this includes the president of Egypt, as he's mildly important for your plans in the next couple years or so. You'll have to keep him from dying to a heart attack at some point, but some thralling should take care of it no problem. Or just advanced healthcare like only you can provide in this dimension, for that matter.
Next you'll use teleportation again to kidnap people here and there from all over the world, just targeting those that nobody will miss, and you should be set for the time being.
Business: Augustus Sinclair is working towards expanding contacts and assuring the populace that cheap water will continue to be available into the future. The current goal is to build additional desalination plants in other coast cities and make advances towards political figures within the country. Henley and Sarah are supporting him.
Internal Affairs: The Thinker is making use of teleportation to kidnap human beings to be used as a source for blood. Nora and Lilian are assisting in taste-testing. Furthermore, the Thinker continues to build additional Eldritch Manufactories and robots to increase resource production..
R : Brigid Tenenbaum, Riley, Curie and the Thinker continue to improve upon existing Plasmids/Tonics. Individual minor projects are pursued, but no great strides are expected at this time.
Intrigue: Wraiths are now spying on all major governments, though their limited number requires prioritization regarding whom to spy on exactly. Currently, it seems the Cold War is in full swing, whereas there are some border tensions between China and the USSR at the moment. The former wants to promote a strong front against capitalism in this ideological battle, however, so you do not expect it to get anywhere unless you push.
Augustus Sinclair sat alone in his office, reading the latest revised contract he already knew he was going to sign before he even touched it; not even half a year in, and the new company he was allegedly working as a spokesperson for was going places.
Sure, it was freaky as all hell he was listening to the voice in his head, but if the boss wants to do business this way, business will be done, simple as that. And boy, was business getting done.
He'd started out with a desalination plant filtering potable water out of the ocean, working with local government to get everything set up, all above board like. Next thing he knew, he was getting a delivery of a handbag's worth of gold bars, along with the voice of Gabriel inside his head telling him to sell it off and use the money to have infrastructure built.
From bigger, better sewers to irrigation channels, all supplied with the water from the plant. Had to get it all approved by the gov'ment, of course, but people here weren't seeing things all that strictly, so things went well.
They went pretty damn well.
Gabriel knew the secrets of anyone Augustus talked to, guiding him along and pointing out how to get anyone to agree to what he wanted. They both also knew who to talk to to get things done, and who to press when, so now, after just a coupla months, there were a dozen water treatment plants in a dozen different cities, and best of all they'd negotiated a monopoly.
He caressed the letters, black on white, on the contract. Most places couldn't really afford to just up and set up all the pipes and infrastructure and engineering that went into hot water in every household, but Cryptic Solutions Inc. could… And the whole system was well damn known in the US already. They paid for it all, and in exchange they got certain guarantees.
Such as the monopoly. In any areas they operated in and financed the construction, nobody else was allowed to bill anyone for water consumption. And if Cryptic Solutions was interested, nobody else could 'claim' an area like they did.
Augustus was grinning, already seeing himself counting the money. The entirety of Egypt was basically begging to be paid a visit, he was getting post from half a dozen government agencies confirming Cryptic's right everywhere and all that was left, now, was to invest into waterways to any place they could reach to rake in the cash.
Passive income in it purest form, essentially, the intrusive thought coming from another… man, agreed. Now all that remains is to wait for the invitation. It has been sent already.
"What invitation, chief?" He asked, figuring he should get ahead of this as best he could. He was already planning on his vacation wearing more bling than the queen of England in another half a year or so, dammit!
Oh, nothing much. Just the president of Egypt wanting a word. He tapped his finger on his desk, thinking. Big news traveled fast, didn't it? He's slated to die to a heart attack next year, but maybe we can… come to an agreement with him, hm?
"Right ya are, chief. Anything I wanna know 'bout him ahead a' time?"
He was looking good these days, Augustus thought to himself. He'd been putting on some weight after Rapture was taken over by that crazy 'psychotherapist' of a woman, he'd been stocking too many of those good ol' rations and packaged creme cakes, but his belly wasn't poking out up front anymore, so his old wardrobe was saved.
Well, it would be if it'd survived Rapture. Still not many men his age that got the kinda bod that let them pay a visit to the beach and get a whistle or two, dig?
So he went to see the president of Egypt wearing his brand new suit and his brand new smile, having arranged for things to keep going during his trip to the capital. Now, Egypt was no US of A, but it was still pretty big far as nations go normally, so he'd be spending a while to get there if it wasn't for the 'company car'.
All he needed was to send word ahead and make sure he had a room somewhere, instead. Well worth it, as he drove the also brand new imported car off one road and onto another a good coupla miles ahead.
Cairo was nice. Bit dusty, still annoying style of fashion, but he wasn't complaining. Arrangements were paying off and the next day he was paying a visit to the parliament's seat, center of everything important going on.
Now, Nasser, he was a mean old politician, tough as they came. Former soldier, took part in revolutionizing a more or less democratic government that took votes at gunpoint, the whole shebang. Unusually honest, though, actually resigned temporarily when a real shitshow went down, but the people demonstrated to get him back in power, so it couldn't have been all that bad.
Approval rating through the roof, too. The man was doing some good work, trying to unite a couple nations as some 'pan-Arab union', his words. Didn't change Egypt and Israel were still at each other's throats, the fighting had just gone cold for the moment.
Contested territory, Egypt had lost a short war, all that jazz. That was why he'd temporarily abdicated, in fact.
Augustus kept all of this in mind as he entered the room, having been briefly searched for weapons and all. Inside, a smiling, more than middle-aged man stood, dark skinned and hair worn short, a small mustache completing the picture.
"President Nasser," he said, giving him a polite nod and holding out a hand. "Augustus Sinclair from Cryptic Solutions Incorporated, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise, Mister Sinclair," the president smiled at him, shaking the proffered digit. "I am thankful you could meet with me on such short notice."
It was obviously his public smile to show to the masses, but Augustus didn't let it bother him. It was only to be expected. "It wasn't the slightest bit of trouble, really. I couldn't exactly leave you waiting, now could I?"
"Mhm…" The man looked at him, looked him over. "Forgive my curiosity, I simply had to see the man doing so much good by my people in person, you see? It isn't every day an American comes all the way to fair Egypt to start a company."
"You know how it is, you find out where there's a need and you fulfill it." 'Specially if it was your own damn need, went unsaid. "We had the technology, so why not use it and make a modest profit, in the long term?"
"Funny you would speak of 'us'," Nasser said, silently waving a hand to invite Augustus to sit. "Nobody has ever heard of 'Cryptic Solutions Incorporated', neither here nor in America, and you are the only man ever seen to be working for it, when you discount the workers hired in the cities you visit."
He could feel the presence of something else, pressing against his mind with no urgency, but the thought was implicit. Augustus did his best to relax, his body now moving outside of his control, mouth and throat producing words just slightly off to him. "Well I was planning to keep it just a little secret, but very well, we don't mind explaining."
Augustus' hand waved through the air and out of nowhere a tendril of darkness stretched out Nasser's shadow, a hand closing around his mouth. The president's shout of surprise was held in as he was dragged behind his desk, deposited inside his chair as Augustus' body followed suit and took a seat.
"There are no workers because the company has been created just last year, specifically to supply Egypt with cheaply available water," his body said. He should be taking notes right now, the way he was talking was just right to keep the man sitting opposite from him hanging onto every word even once his face was free of coagulated shadows again. "It is only the first step, of course, of a much larger plan, but it will only aid the Egyptian people, as a matter of course."
President Nasser waited a moment, to see if the guards would show up after all, but none came storming the room. Augustus would have been surprised if there were any.
"… I see," he finally said. "I presume you would detail this 'plan' of yours, then?" His eyes were looking into his own, searching.
Augustus' lips formed an easygoing smile, his body still worn like a suit. "Only as much as you need to know, naturally. Suffice it to say, however, your work has been good enough for us to have this conversation, so the job interview went well enough. It may have been politics that saw you kick the fanatics to the curb, but that's good enough for our purposes."
A hand shot up on his elbow, fingers snapping as a glass vial appeared, containing a dark red substance. It seemed like it was moving inside of there, sluggishly. The shadows were writhing in the corners.
"How would you like a taste of power? True, ageless, superhuman power?"
When the devil came a'calling, was no man ready to resist.
End Of Quarter Updates:
Business: Sinclair has successfully established contact with Nasser and the president's thralling has commenced. Currently, Cryptic Solutions Inc. is spreading all over Egypt, building waterways and pipelines to ensure any inhabited settlement big enough to show on a map is supplied with water. Estimated completion in one to two years with government assistance and backing.
Internal Affairs: Exponential growth of industrial capabilities within Rapture is occurring according to plan. Human subjects have been acquired and supplied to the relevant departments.
R : Enhancements to ADAM-products have been undertaken, but the project has stalled in order to facilitate a new breakthrough in Riley's research using human test subjects in the artificial inducement of parahuman powers, details following.
(Anonymous Patron has used a crit here, just to let you know)
Intrigue: Major governments have been successfully infiltrated by Wraiths, passing major information along as it come up. Should the need arise, quick decapitation strikes are possible, though a limited number of Wraiths means only the most important kind of information is available at this time.
"Fascinating, absolutely fascinating," Curie said, the former robot clad in a lab coat staring fixedly at the recording of the scans they had taken. "It 'rows like a tumour, not unlike cancer, but it is very directed."
"We know the Passengers are meant to be capable of this. It's probably just an automatic reaction to being introduced to a human body, like a reflex," Riley purported. It was a funny word, to purport.
"And you say the exact structural makeup determines the expression?" Doctor Brigid Tenenbaum asked, one of the few actual doctors Riley even knew she'd ever met. "It would seem like a relay, of sorts. The Passengers acts through it and monitors the host brain for activity indicating power use."
"Exactly!" She agreed. "There's a lot of individual differences in how what shapes and parts interact, but my power sorts those out for me. I just need accurate scans or an open skull to see what I'm doing with my other powers."
Inside the almost fully automated operating room the three of them were watching, a test subject, homeless male in his late twenties from Arizona according to the documentation, was force-fed a vial of roiling, dark brown liquid by robotic arms, the Thinker as always perfectly prepared to take care of manual tasks that involved potential danger. The one-sided glass was useful for many reasons, though the presence of observers really should be no great surprise for any of the subjects they were working through today.
"See, the Corona grows the moment the liquid makes contact with the subject's soft tissue," Doctor Tenenbaum said, pointing it out in the scans being take in real time. "The substance does not even enter the dietary tract before it begins, in fact."
"Oui, most interesting, is it not?" Curie nodded. "The Passenger acts on its own the moment an 'ost presence is clear, indicating it continues to perceive through lost parts of itself if our data is accurate."
"They seem to be able to- oh dear, it's happening again," Riley pouted. Down in the operating theater, the man whose body they were watching for changes began to swell, skin melting into smoke even as his muscles and soft tissue ballooned out into a sticky, metallic-grey substance, expanding in all directions.
"Note, instability is a continued result of ongoing tests," Doctor Tenenbaum spoke into a voice diary, despite knowing she could just host the memories in the thoughtnet if she really wanted to store them reliably. "Recommendations towards calmed test subjects remain impractical, as scented candles and classical music seem to be insufficient."
"Well, we do abduct random people off the streets and store them in windowless cells for hours," Riley pointed out.
"Per'aps we should consider them as long-term investments, rather than one-time experimental subjects?" Curie asked. "We could produce an introductory video as well, simply play it once they 'ave been retrieved."
"Ooor I could just use my power," the youngest girl in the room suggested instead, still staring at the scan records now playing in slow motion. "I think my power is giving me ideas already… If we could tailor the Corona's development, maybe…"
Gah, she needed a living brain right now! Preferably one still inside the skull, even, she needed to test out a few theories!
It was a little lonely, now, with daddy so busy with work, but Lilian didn't mind at all. She still had her mommies and her sisters, so even when he was paying attention to something else in another place, she could just look towards them for company, though she didn't do that much.
"You're such a spoiled little princess, aren't you?" Mommy was brushing her hair, keeping Lilian on her lap and smiling happily.
"No. I am a self-sufficient princess," she denied the insinuation. She may or may not have been puffin up her chest, too.
Mommy was just chuckling, still fussing over her hair. "Fair enough. Has my big girl been playing nice with everyone, too?"
"Mhm," she nodded. "I'm playing with the Little Sisters to keep an eye on them."
Because someone needed to be the responsible one and Eleanor wasn't always there. Delta didn't count, he let the girls ride on his back while he went to test out weapons.
"I'm glad you like taking care of them. Do you think you'll get along with any siblings you'll have, too? You know how your daddy is."
"I also know my mommies," Lilian grumped. "You're pregnant again already. But don't worry, I'll take care of and protect everyone like the best big sister that I am!"
She flexed her arms, eliciting another chuckle. "Good, good. I was worried, you know?"
"Don't be. You're not allowed to worry, mommy."
Thus she hath spoken, and thus it shall be. Except then mommy stopped, tilting her head and sighing. "I do believe if Sarah was human her water would have just broken. Your daddy is going to be just as agitated as when you were born, isn't he?"
She nodded. "Good daddy. He gets headpat rights later."
Naturally, as soon as you hear the news you're straining against your current state of limited corporeality, given you don't have much of any control over your body while hibernating; indeed, you would be kind of unable to do anything without blood being fed to you to 'wake you up'.
Thankfully, the Thinker did suggest an easy solution, and so it is that a robotic arm coming from behind your throne is feeding you the iron-y fluid through a tube in short order, pumping you full so you may rise and attend to what is really important.
You're at Sarah' side in an instant, your foxy little sister's bulging, pregnant belly… Already slowly deflating, her lazy smile greeting you as she is sitting up, baby already born and feeding on her milk. "Awh, you came just a little bit late, Big Gabey. It's a beautiful baby girl."
"Of course she's beautiful, she's our daughter," you remark without particularly thinking about it. "Also, was she born transformed already?"
You were just about ready to blow up a country or two from sheer stress just a few moments ago, you're justified in changing the topic real quick.
"Was she, now?" Your Little Sarah smiles, popping out her own fox ears and tail. The newborn babe is still suckling, waves of contentment and curiosity emanating from her. "You'll just have to ask her once she can think straight, won't you?"
"Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm just glad she was born safely." You come closer, gently hugging both your sister and baby, inordinately glad they're alright. "Welcome to the world."
The baby girl gurgles happily, arms flailing towards your general direction. Love you daddy.
Aww. Your love feels like it's swelling so much you have to go blow up a random nation's capital before you explode.
"She still needs a name, of course," Sarah reminds you, stroking her back.
Your mind blanks out. What… What did you brainstorm in term of names again? It's weird, you should be able to remember with perfect clarity, but somehow in these situations you just can't seem to think back to anything constructive.
The African savanna is host to a great many animals that, not that long ago in this dimension, were of great interest to the colonial powers of the world, from elephants and their precious ivory teeth to valuable furs and leathers taken from whatever else they could find.
Well, that and of course the humans running around, those were also valuable and useful for them, you'd imagine. It is one thing you have in common, though it has to be said the reasons you prize humanity do tend to be only partially overlapping with those of certain governments.
Not everyone prefers to literally eat people on a large scale, after all.
There's plenty of villages all over Africa, wherever the climate allows for settlements, at any rate, and so it is simply a matter of searching them out, brutally disabling all living inhabitants by crushing their limbs using your power over gravity and then teleporting your newborn daughter in to feed on them one after the other.
Thank you, daddy. Next? She's wiggling in your arms, foxy ears wagging along as her tail swishes back and forth. In other words, she's a bundle of adorable. Much more constantly active than Lilian was at her age, though just as much of a cutiepie.
"Here you go, sweetie. We have a good couple more," you say, waving a hand to telekinetically pull another local towards yourself, the begging woman's cries silenced in short order as you tear her neck open with your claws. "Drink up!"
Serena is so fragile and precious, you have to feed her well to begin with just in case. Vampires don't catch diseases normally, but your kids aren't how you want to find out there are exceptions during their growth period.
Nom nom nom nom nom… She's gulping the dark red lifeblood you offer to her down in heavy mouthfuls, really gorging herself. A good appetite is honestly one of the most relieving things a parent can see in their child; in that respect, maybe vampire kid are the best kind of kids to have, beyond the obvious.
Such as the fact they're your kids and therefore just inherently superior and wonderful.
Done! Serena burps in your arm, giggling like the delightful baby she is. Next!
And another poor African villager goes down the hatch. Life can be so easy when you're undead.
Naturally, now that Serena has been stabilized (being as fragile as a living human being at the age of ten is a horrible fate to be sure), you take a while to spend it with her, once Lilian has had enough of playing with her new little sister; you're pretty sure the part where she threw her into the air and caught her again would be pretty bad for a human baby, at least, but she just told you it was done for the purpose of 'training'.
And, well, who are you to interfere when two of your little darlings are having fun? Serena grew tired of that little game eventually, of course, but by that point Lilian was already teaching her to walk on her own two feet, so that clearly wasn't the biggest issue in the world.
But yes, anyways, Lilian is off to look after her mother, an amused Nora letting her daughter's 'concern' guide her away. Meanwhile, you, Sarah and the newest addition to your little family are left behind, clearly not at all a ploy of your other daughter's to make you spend time with each other.
Obviously.
So there you are, sneaking some of the leftover cake from last time to let Serena try it, you and Sarah taking turns feeding her with the same spoon. Once she's had enough, gurgling happily and telling you she wants ear scratches (which had Sarah demand the same, of course), you borrow one of the board games scavenged from Rapture during the big spring cleaning you had the Thinker enact from the Little Sisters you summarily gave any toys and the like to.
It's kind of like monopoly? Just themed after Rapture's whole thing back when it was a more or less functioning society, with street names replaced by sections of the city and event cards ranging from drowning unruly employees out an airlock to gain money by hiring on cheaper ones instead to gaining connections in high society to receive various bonuses.
It's pretty whack, in an almost self-mocking way. You dearly hope people actually understood that a lot of thing didn't work based purely on hyper-capitalism. Then again, they did sell Plasmids without a care about the side effects of large amounts of ADAM, so…
Well, you aren't exactly surprised things went down the way they did prior to your arrival, is all you're saying.
That said, Serena is having fun playing it and colluding with Sarah against you, the mother-daughter combo out to rob you of every dollar you possess and, quote, 'tie you up inside the bedroom forever'.
You've had plenty of offers of that kind before and not all of them were voluntary, but you still got out eventually no matter what and you tell them as much.
Lastly, but certainly not leastly, you're letting Serena practice her magic on some of the prisoners you took over the past couple months, holding her up so she can properly see through the one-way glass you habitually use for actual prison cells (as opposed to pods minimizing occupant movement as much as possible, saving space and effort both). "Wa wee wa ga buh!"
Interestingly, you can actually understand what she's saying out loud when she does this. "Wa wee wa ga buh!"
"So cute and precocious, isn't she?" Sarah smiles, holding Serena right now. You need to regularly shift her around before she gets too fussy, she just loves both her parents too much- when Nora is in the room, your little diva also does demand to be held by her, in fact.
"Precious all the way down," you nod.
"Wa wee wa ga buh!"
"It's so itchy! Please, I have to scratch it, I have to!"
"Wa wee wa ga buh!"
"So small and already committing what would be a war crime if he were a prisoner of war," you chuckle, gently scratching Serena behind her blonde fox ears. "Just like her daddy, isn't she?"
"She really does come after you, huh?"
"Oh, don't worry, she's just as fussy as you were as a baby," you tell your lovely Little Sarah. "So she's got some of both of us."
"Wa wee wa ga buh!"
"… I suppose that's a good thing." Sarah nuzzles your daughter's fox ears, gently patting her back. "Our little diva, hm?"
"Ga buh!" More cuddles! I like them! "Wa wee wa ga buh!"
"Yep. And it's not like we'd have it any other way."
You embrace your sister and baby both, letting them feel your love. Truly, torturing prisoners for fun is the best kind of family bonding around.
Naturally, now that you've let one daughter play with a prisoner, it would be remiss of you if you didn't let the other do the same as well, even if you do insist on a few safety measures that weren't present with Serena- simply put, Lilian wants to enter the prison cell with the dead meat walking inside and kill him herself.
Now vampires do grow up quickly and are inherently physically stronger than anything their size has any right to be from birth, but physically speaking she is still about the size of a three year old, maybe a little more or less, you aren't an expert on this or anything.
You repeat, your months-old daughter in the body of a three-year-old wants to beat a man to death with her bare hands. Ostensibly to prove she has the control over her body needed to do so and wants to exercise it, but you know precisely she just thinks it'd be fun and wants to try.
Personally, you blame all the memories of yourself doing so you threw into shared thought space. Turns out normalizing violence to kids does have some negative effects, even though you maintain that it's stupid to try and censor or hide it in movies and video games through age restrictions.
But yes, you are most definitely observing firsthand as Lilian confronts her chosen opponent. Nora, for her part, does elect to stay outside… With her gun well in hand, the disintegration mode perfectly capable of shooting through the wall and absolutely destroying a human in one shot.
What can you say, this is not a fair fight and it isn't supposed to be one. Though you do go shadow prior to infiltrating the cell, wouldn't want to distract the sucker being volunteered for this exercise too much.
When Lilian is teleported into the holding cell in all her toddler glory, wearing just a loose shirt and pants, he looks at her dumbfounded for a long moment, but she impassively stares back.
"Only way you get out is through me," she says, flexing her still slightly pudgy hands.
"Whatever I'm on right now, it has to be the good sh- AAAHH!"
In his defense, most people would scream when a toddler extends claws and launches themselves at their face.
Lilian is quick and efficient in a brutal way as she sets to dismantling her 'opponent'. A good rake of her claw across the tendons of the man's left arm leaves him unable to make a fist on that side, her jump carrying her onwards to impact his chest with an elbow and knock him back as the force with which she propelled herself is transferred onto him.
As he staggers, she is quick to capitalize, a good grab followed by a tearing motion similarly removing a bloodied kneecap as the screaming victim you took for this collapses. It isn't long after this that she finishes him off, a flurry of blows applied to methodically cripple and bleed him one part at a time.
In the end, all Lilian has to do is slash open his jugular, the sobbing wreck of a man that used to live on the streets just lying there unable to do more than wiggle in pain. Once she's done drinking the spill that follows, consuming his soul as is only proper (you didn't teach her much, but you did teach her better than to waste food) and using her still somewhat sluggish hemokinesis to clean herself up.
"That was fun," she comments, looking at where you've been hanging onto the wall so far.
Glad you enjoyed yourself, you think at her.
"I want a stronger one next time."
"Out of the question." Now you're popping into three dimensions again. "You could seriously hurt yourself if you play with your food like that."
"… I have to be strong to protect my sisters," Lilian pouts.
"When you've grown up and convinced me and your mothers you can handle it," you conclude decisively.
"I can fight, right?" Lilian asked.
"Definitely. As long as you don't overdo it, you have my blessing," Mommy Nora agreed.
"Once you have aura, you'll be able to fight just about anything in this dimension we know about," Mommy Sarah added. "All you need to do is convince Gabriel."
She nodded, resolutely. "I must cast down the strong until only the weak remain. The best way to protect everyone is by killing anything that might pose a threat."
"So precious."
"You're telling me."
Her mommies sighed fondly.
"Alright then," you say, lying down on the medical chair you got just for this occasion- the ones you had already were all kind of uncomfortable, so you went ahead and fabricated a few actually comfy ones, "I'm curious to see if there is anything to Sarah's claims."
You never really saw the need to look into this, but now that you have kids you figured you really should make sure you don't actually project some kind of… subtle reality warping field or anything, as your sister has purported for some time.
"It's been a while since I've been operating on someone without the bone saw," Riley comments, rummaging around the cabinets containing various tools and scanning equipment made for this occasion.
"Not that invasive surgery will be required today," Brigid notes herself in her German accent, standing above you and studying the results of the full-body scan you took already, complete with x-ray and carbon dating of a piece of your bone. "According to our preliminary results, it seems your body is similar enough to an unaltered human baseline on a biological level to pass as one despite the numerous changes your vampirism has wrought."
"It's all exactly like it should be in a human, just the functions changed," Riley explains. "The dietary tract just doesn't care about anything done to it, matter put inside disappears the moment it is unobserved. The lungs are just there to draw in and expel air to mimic breathing and allow talking, the heart does pump blood but only sometimes… We could go on."
"Most interestingly, you do not appear to have a metabolism at all, indeed qualifying for the title of 'undead'," Brigid concludes. "However, that is not the main reason of this investigation."
"Yeah, about that," you say, head raised up so you can actually see both of them, "how do you even go about testing something as obscure as a passive causality manipulating effect?"
"Simple," the Jewish geneticist, biologist and then some replies. Then she unbuttons her blouse. "Oh my, it is rather warm right now, is it not?"
You raise an eyebrow. Bit bad acting there, you have to admit.
"If only there was- oufh."
"Oh!"
It happens in one go. Brigid slips on something, as many people often do, and trips right onto your chair, hands slamming into the soft cushions beside your eat. At the same time, Riley tries to help her stay standing, only to instead accidentally trip herself, the blonde's small body slamming onto your chest.
You catch her, of course. So there you are, Brigid's face all but buried in your crotch and Riley clutched to your naked chest (as you aren't wearing clothes for this investigation, they would've gotten in the way). "Careful there, you two."
"It seems the experiment was a success," Brigid announces, her breath tickling your dick. "It would appear the hypothesis to be tested may have some merit."
"It's just a coincidence, accidents like this happen all the time," you object.
"I am not in the habit of tripping on flat ground, Gabriel. And dear Riley's panties are currently sliding down her legs."
"They are," the premier bio-tinker of Earth Bet nods.
"That sounds like business as usual to me."
You're interrupted by Brigid grabbing onto your manhood, stroking it to hardness (as you allow to happen). "It does seem more and more like there is a force of some kind that is encouraging certain events to happen with increased likelihood. Perhaps a form of probability manipulation?"
"Pretty sure I'd have noticed that," you grumble, pulling yourself up a bit to kiss Riley's neck, the younger parahuman moaning in surpried pleasure.
"Simple cognitive dissonance, Gabriel. You simply do not notice as it is common for you, but I assure you not everyone has sex with your frequency."
"It's plausible it's just because he's handsome and looks really, really good in general," Riley comments, "but that wouldn't explain how blatantly everyone trips onto his dick."
"Have you considered I often do put effort into seducing women?"
"Not sufficient to explain how often beautiful females just so happen to respond to your flirtation," Brigid says. Then, blush all but audible, she kisses the head of your now hard rod. "Or middle-aged scientists, in my case."
"Nonsense, you're a beautiful woman and anyone saying otherwise obviously overdosed on ADAM."
There isn't much talking done after this, Rapture's once leading geneticist sucking on your cock as an ex-member of the Slaughterhoue 9 makes out with you, rubbing herself against your torso, but the very idea of anything about that being strange or particularly noteworthy seems almost alien to you.
Beyond confirming that nothing weird is happening around you that might harm your kids, you also do naturally spend some time making sure they're doing alright in general, temporarily shifting away from sharing your senses with them as you hide inside the shadows to watch them… As a literal shadow yourself, it goes without saying.
As you already knew from reviewing earlier memories and actions, Lilian and Serena have taken to playing with the Little Sisters, the former largely to watch over them and make sure they don't hurt themselves if they somehow manage to get into the machinery all over the place (they don't, you did childproof your headquarters several times anytime you made changes to it but the notion is good far as you're concerned) and the latter just wants to play with the other kids to the best of your knowledge.
It is quite hard, of course, to stay back and just watch as they totter around, younger and smaller than the Little Sisters they're playing with; your daughters? They are just absolutely adorable, you want to rush out there and hug them to your heart's content right now.
When you come around to see what they are doing first, they all seem to be playing skipping rope together, though they don't stay on it for long- the moods of children are mercurial at times, including this one. You do, of course, request the Thinker make sure the footage of all of this is kept securely for review so you may later assemble a proper scrapbook, to go with all the horrible dad jokes you really should start thinking about.
You are, after all, a dad now. You have to act appropriately, wouldn't do to embarrass the occupation at large through insufficient baby pictures available.
So there they go, shifting towards playing with crayons and scribbling whatever they can think of- onto paper, this time, so you don't have to worry about never using that one tunnel again lest you feel just a little self-conscious about it. Your daughters are so cute, making sure everyone knows how to use a couple of your tricks and doing their best to draw what they do…
You'll definitely hang these pictures up in your office later. Everyone's, too, wouldn't do to leave the Little Sisters out or anything.
The fun keeps going for as long as everyone can walk, going from board games to playing patty cakes (Lilian is extremely proud of her proficiency in this one in particular) all the way to drafting playing boards onto the ground and going for some hopscotch.
It bars to be stated again, your daughters are playing hopscotch with their stubby little legs, together with the Little Sisters that are going along with it because it seems fun. If you weren't in hiding right now, you'd be patting their heads already.
As it always happens, however, the Little Sisters eventually grow tired, so they all move to one of the cozier lounges dotting the area, Lilian and Serena included- and, of course, they all strip, because sleeping in clothes is icky (you can sympathize with that, of course) and lie down in a big pile; Serena is right in the middle of it, blissfully doing the closest thing a vampire has to sleep amongst the mutated girls (and the couple of them Brigid turned back to normal before you found her) while Lilian is keeping watch, staunchly keeping both doors into and out of the room in sight instead of joining in.
It is then that you show up, silently materializing behind her and reestablishing thought links as normal. She jerks up in surprise, but doesn't otherwise react as you come closer to pick her up and deposit her into your lap.
"Don't worry," you whisper, "I'll take over."
"… Okay."
And there you are, Lilian sleeping peacefully as well, lying on your crossed legs and receiving gentle head pats. You never really found sleep that great as a way to spend time, but your daughters may as well experience it if they're interested.
You do spend some time, once everyone is fast asleep and unlikely to wake up, creating a few more of your by now standard Wraiths, just the barebones without any soul fragments added beyond the actual souls you are fusing into each other and using as the ingredients themselves; the powers the end results get are quite sufficient enough simply due to your raw skill in manipulating soul matter, even if you could push things a lot further in case you really decided to invest into them.
Maybe later, spiritual undead you raise are less… flexible, in many ways, than corporeal ones, but in this one case it is easier to add fragments afterwards, a opposed to the complete deanimation required to do the same with ones that have physical bodies.
It's a pain to do and you don't really want to bother, but if it does come down to it you can do it, that's what counts in the end.
You do it quietly, so you don't bother the sleeping forms all around you, but you're pretty good at not being noticed doing things by this point, you'd like to think.
Just like that, you nearly quadruple the amount of supernatural spies and agents available to you in one swift go. It's all a matter of finding the right souls to be press-ganged for the job.
There are many projects and still proceeding parts of your overall plans for you to follow up on, if you so wish, at any time you're mobile and actually doing things, but for the most part you've taken to simply leaving all of that to someone trustworthy enough. From Sarah to Sinclair, you maintain that having someone else do your work for you is just the most efficient way to get a lot of work done quickly.
Many hands and all that, though you feel you're kind of stretching the proverb here.
That said, there are a few things you still must do in person, due to your own knowledge, skillset, phenomenal cosmic powers or similar. Hey, you can offload a lot of work to others, but sometimes you really do have to do it yourself if you want it done right.
Everyone's got their specialties, your specialties are just pretty… expansive, to put it like that.
In this particular case, you are going out of your way to work with the Thinker a little, having gained a lot of experience in regards to computing hardware just as a matter of course in the designs you've been throwing around for your robots- the things need a hell of a lot of computing power to crunch the kinds of numbers they need to just to function- and so you are uniquely situated as to advancing the project of downsizing the thinker's core intelligence and programming to-
"The Artificial Intelligence Containment Overusing Relativistic Energy, or A.I.CORE for short, has been constructed and tested sufficiently using the design schemes provided," the Thinker's smooth, vaguely female artificial voice explains as you enter the core chamber.
"… Wait, you didn't actually need me to help out with that?" So much for that whole spiel then, you suppose.
"Designation Eldritch Technology is only partially usable utilizing current projections. Implementation according to predefined parameters is trivial."
Translation, the Thinker doesn't quite get your eldritch tech, but she can use it when given an instruction manual just fine. Which is fair enough, really, it's not like this stuff is tinkertech.
"Well, I suppose I'm not really needed here right now, then," you shrug, turning around to leave… Only for the doors to slam shut by themselves.
"Other new developments require your attention," the Thinker blandly states, the artificial intelligence using one of her standard bodies lining the walls to approach you. "For the purpose of testing in particular."
You blink, but just decide to go along with it- you know the thinker has been working with the rest of the R team a lot, so this is probably just an extension of that work. "Alright, what do you need me to do?"
"Command: Impregnate me." The Thinker body leans over, presenting her round, bubbly butt to you. "Addendum: Hard."
"Who could say no to that?" You ask as you drop your pants, stroking yourself to hardness as you come up behind her. "Impregnate, though?"
"This unit is equipped with an experimental womb segment capable of growing further units," she explains. "It uses several Eldritch Cores to full potential and requires your sperm to commence operations."
So you're about to stick your dick into a machine that could produce enough energy to… Well, convert energy into matter? The Thinker is lucky that's never going to stop you, you suppose.
Stepping behind her, knowing her deceptively organic body is already warming up for you, you smile. "We both know you just wanted to get fucked more."
You push into her without further ado, an orifice designed to pleasure you, yourself, in particular opening up around your cock, the Thinker's pussy eagerly sucking you in. It's tight and hot, organic fluids produced as soon as she got horny lubricating your rod, and the moment you stick it in the particular body you're fucking is… almost convulsing, moving in fits and start, pleasure overwhelming its system.
"Gh-g-g-hhk!"
You resist rolling your eyes in amusement. It must be so easy, to shift a slider up and increase her sensitivity however much she likes.
Every part of this body has been engineered to provide maximum pleasure, every thrust providing you with sensation deep enough to shiver up your spine, but you don't exactly come easy nor quickly, instead shoving your cock all the way into her and fondling her perky breasts. "Is that your womb I feel?" You ask, grinding your crotch against her butt, a softly-solid barrier felt against your tip. "Is that where you want my cum?"
Already knowing this body is a lost cause, the Thinker uses eleven other bodies to approach you from all sides instead, the voice of the one you're busy with continuing to malfunction. ""That is correct,"" they all say unison. ""Once you are done, proceed to inseminate all other units present."
Nearly a dozen pairs of hands are now roaming yourself and your 'victim', held down and in position by your hands, and you chuckle as the Thinker begins to drive itself crazy and fondle your balls at the same time. "Guess we'd better do this right then," you smile to yourself.
""To maximize chances of success, please make sure to ejaculate a minimum of three times in each unit.""
"Needy little AI, aren't you?"
Thoroughly complying with the Thinker's requests takes some time, simply due to the number of semi-biological bodies you have to work your way through, but eventually all the ones equipped with the experimental self-proliferation technology have been 'supplied' to her satisfaction.
It's still just a complete joy to see how her mental compartmentalization works. Several threads of the artificial intelligence you've manage to stumble onto dick first are still blissed out after your performance, specifically the ones controlling the affected bodies, yet the rest the Thinker's consciousness is still operating more or less as per normal, just a slight hitch here and there while you were busy overloading the former in the central processing unit.
… Which is probably a bad thing, actually, but hey, she'll probably get used to it eventually. No need to worry about it.
That, said, while you're here already… "Hey Thinker, I have a question."
"Please state your query," the mechanical person requests.
"Most of the notable scientists and such around Rapture are long dead and can't really be resurrected through the vita chambers due to soul instability, so we haven't really been able to add to our ranks through them," you begin, "but is there anyone that you know would have been stubborn enough to stick around in… some kind of afterlife, I guess?"
"Searching…" The Thinker sends you a cheery 'ding' of confirmation, the robotic nature of which only casts the all but unconscious cyborg bodies lying around you with eye rolled up and leaking your seed in starker contrast yet. "Match Found. Subject Name: Charles Milton Porter. Designation: Subject Sigma."
Wait a moment, you know that name. You also remember anything you know with perfect clarity. "One of your creators? He was turned into a Big Daddy?"
"Affirmative," the female-identifying intelligence lets you know. "Subject Sigma is currently stored with the majority of other surviving subjects. A medical coma has been induced using control pheromones."
You know about that- many of the Big Daddy models after the first couple of prototypes and earlier attempts at modifying human beings into being used as sheepdogs for the Little Sisters were being controlled through pheromones, including ones the Little Sisters themselves exuded. Still, why would…
Ah, you got Reed's memories, no need to guess. He literally got rid Porter by accusing him of being a Fontaine sympathizer- and so much for not performing literal witch hunts after political dissidents, Ryan- so as to use the Thinker to… Do his thing, determine an absolute equation to predict the future with and become a god or something. His own thoughts and memories are kind of foggy as to what his actual goal was, in the end, almost certainly because of how badly he spliced himself up in the end.
"Do you think Porter would be a good fit for our little society of like-minded individuals?"
"Charles Milton Porter possesses a history of inspired work regarding computer systems and programming. Addendum: Gratitude for the results of his work exists."
"Mhm, he did create you," you smile, just barely holding back a full-blown grin. "I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea to restore your father to a semblance of sanity, then, once we find a way."
"Protest: This artificial intelligence was not born. Continuation: Charles Milton Porter would be a valuable asset."
"I'm sure, I'm sure. I'll admit, it is kind of cute seeing you want to help your daddy." An electronic buzzing noise comes over the speakers you're using to communicate with the Thinker. "But yeah, did you talk to Brigid about finding a way to undo whatever state he's in by now? Most Big Daddies have it pretty bad, if you recall."
"Statement: That is the next step. Note: A temporary solution has been applied."
You feel a vibration through the ground, using your supernatural sense of touch. An explosion, almost certainly. "… Did you just blow him up and fix him up again with ADAM?" It's the first thing that comes to mind.
"Error: This statement can neither be confirmed nor denied."
He blinked awake, confused. He was inside a room, smooth steel plates everywhere he could see, but his field of vision was limited by some kind of… lens?
No, a helmet. He was wearing a helmet, with a pane of glass up front.
He looked down, expecting to find gloves, but instead he saw… armor. He was inside a suit of armored equipment.
Something niggled at the back of his mind, but he couldn't figure out what.
"So, you got pretty fucked up, huh?" He pushed himself up, effortlessly moving his own bulk with more muscle than he thought he should have. "Take your time, you just finished regenerating."
He breathed out a long, heavy breath. He didn't have a mouth. He didn't have a mouth.
"Easy there. Can you see me? Just raise your right hand for yes, left for no."
He looked, trying to find more information. There was a white man, wearing a suit. He raised his right hand.
"Great," the man said. "Now you wouldn't happen to remember who you are, would you?"
He raised his left hand, not seeing a point in lying.
"Figures. Well, you do seem to have regained your sense, at least, so we're making progress." This had to be what it felt like to talk to a psychiatrist. "Before we go on, my name is Gabriel Livsey, just to let you know, and your own is Charles Milton Porter. You used to be a computer specialist before you got turned into a Big Daddy."
The name… He thought it might mean something to him. And… He knew what a Big Daddy was.
"Easy, easy." His arms flailed out, but the man, Livsey, was there already, holding his limbs in place. Definitely took a good few tonics. "You're in a bad way right now, but we'll have you restored to normal before you know it, you hear me?"
There was no way to do so. Big Daddies were pumped full of so much ADAM, it was a small miracle they were even still humanoid.
"We've got the technology," Livsey said as though he'd read his mind. "I'll show you to the lab and introduce you to everyone. We have high hopes for you once you've recovered, but for now just try not to hurt yourself, alright?"
… There was little else he could do. Very well, Charles, if that was indeed his name, would just go along with this. Until he found an opportunity to gain more information or get out, wherever 'here' was.
You honestly still have way too much work to do, even after helping the Thinker out with her 'experimental technology' and getting Porter settled inside a nice, inoffensive cell to try taking a couple potions some of the others are looking to test out on him- just recipes you've already pioneered yourself, except you never really got a chance to try them out on a suitable subject.
They'll take care of it. Weirdly enough, for all that you are running a shadowy conspiracy at the literal bottom of the ocean, you have some of the most advanced healthcare in the world available at this time and then some.
Next off… Well, it's time to look into expanding your circle a bit. Not your inner circle, that's perfectly fine as it is, but the mid- to outer-circle areas could use a few more hands on deck, especially as you've begun to expand once again.
Literally taking over the world is a big task, one that you'll need lots of administrative personnel for. So you went ahead and sat down with Henley, sifting through the world's top universities in search of an enterprising chap that might just fit the bill.
You kind of wanted to go for an Englishman just because the idea amused you, but you eventually settle on a promising candidate with top marks, a history of personal discipline and symptoms of slight psychopathy- y'know, the kind of person you can expect to work with in the long term.
You make sure to let Henley know this guy will be his second-in-command for a few millenia to come, assuming he turns out well and you don't have to liquidate him within a week, so he had best not fuck around on this one.
You got a good feeling, though, so you'll trust your instincts and assume he'll be useful for the time being.
While all of this is going on, you are of course also commanding a few of your now surplus Wraiths to snoop around a bit, going off of the wiki dive you took prior to returning to Earth Rapture. Interestingly enough, once all the old nazis that fled Germany died at one point or another, it apparently became much easier to follow their tracks and identify how they ended up where, and you aren't assuming all too much would have changed about them in this version of Earth's history.
But that's what you have your undead spectral spies for. A lot of those same nazis were actually hunted down and killed by the Mossad, Israel's version of the secret service, so you have to make sure you know which ones are where, how alive they are and how boned they will be in a month or two at the latest.
But all in due time. Right now, you have a little date with one Josef Mengele (you are definitely butchering the name, but whatever, you'll butcher the man himself as well in short order).
Josef Mengele. One of the perhaps worse nazis around in his time, which is impressive considering he was around during the nazi regime in Germany, the original band, so to say, in that he conducted many experiments of varying kinds of Jewish people of all ages, including kids. Not that you are one to talk, having committed what are not plenty of warcrimes only on a technicality insofar as nowhere that you did any of it actually had laws meant to regulate warfare, but seriously, this is one pretty despicable guy.
It bears repeating the nazi regime was a dictatorship, much as it would be hilarious to have a whole nation of actual, literal nazis to murder for fun and profit. The real bad guys, though, have fled from their homeland already by this point, as they aren't exactly keen on sticking around and seeing a judge or two about a couple things they did, so you actually did have to do some investigating to make sure you got everyone of interest.
Argentina, for example, was a popular travel destination among a certain group of people, so your Wraiths are sniffing over around there a lot. Israel, as a nation, has a vested interest in seeing as many nazis brought to justice as they can, so certain information about a whole bunch of guys that thought they'd managed to escape will be a great help to Nasser once you have him set to brokering a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel so as to get the Suez Canal unblockaded and back under Egyptian control and all.
To the best of your knowledge, pursuit of Mengele in particular stopped in '62, once Israel decided call their losses and all, but the man is still very much wanted internationally.
So it is, then, that you appear one fine day at the door of a certain Brazilian farm house, having followed the trail even using certain magics to find your way all the way here. Your suit sits nicely, your smile is on, it's time to steal a nazi.
Mengele's soul will be a great addition to your collection.
You intrude on the home you're looking at as a low mist, creeping inside and forging ahead, ignoring the sleeping pair in one room and instead homing in on the man sitting at a desk, presumably doing some paperwork or balancing numbers or whatever.
You rematerialize soundlessly, right behind him. "Mengele," you smile aloud.
He stiffens, the older man slowly turning around. "Nein, ich bin Gerhard, Wolfgang Ger-" (No, I'm Gerhard, Wolfgang Ger-)
You don't care what he's saying and your German is still atrocious, so you simply grab him and give the Thinker the telepathic signal.
"-hard." Now you're inside a certain place a long distance down from sea level.
"Ich befürchte, manche Verbrechen werden eben doch bestraft." (I'm afraid some crimes are punished after all.) Totally worth it to ask Brigid to teach you just a phrase or two.
Now comes the really challenging part of the proceedings; the man's fate is sealed as is, but following the conversation to come before you've eaten him to steal his language skills and actually understand German will be… hard.
You've got some basic German from some wannabe big bad nazi wannabes styling themselves after the Gesellshaft (you know that's not their name and you don't care, they're literal nazis), but they were just that- wannabes. You know for a fact they just looked German up online and went with what they could remember.
The door to the otherwise featureless room opens, revealing Brigid who steps inside without a hitch in her step, the former 'scientist' currently still trying to get up after falling down in surprise, having been teleported while sitting, only to stop moving as she speaks. "Doktor Mengele," she says, looking him up and down. "Sie haben wirklich abgebaut."
(Doctor Mengele. You really, uh, lost your touch? Hard to parse.)
"Aah… Das Wunderkind," the former nazi scientist says, eye grown wide. "Ich hätte es wissen sollen."
(Aah… The Wonder Child. I should have known.)
"Wenn wir auf Titel zurückgreifen, könnte ich Sie Todesengel nennen. Allerdings glaube ich nicht, dass wir allzu viel Zeit haben um in Erinnerungen zu schwelgen."
(If we're recalling titles, I could call you death angel. I don't believe we have all too much time to… Indulge nostalgia, is the basic gist of it. You think.)
"Hah! Ich weiß nicht, was hier genau passiert, aber ich kann's mir denken." Mengele stumbles to his feet, his age not playing nice with him. Sucks to be human. "So ende ich also, hm?"
(Hah! I don't know exactly what is going on, but I can imagine. So this is how it ends, hm?)
"Wenn es das einfacher macht, Sie sind einfach nur ein mittel zum Zweck. Es ist nichts persönliches." Brigid looks him in the eyes, her own face inscrutable.
(If that makes it easier, you are just a means to an end. It's nothing personal.)
"Du bist darin verwickelt, es konnte von Anfang an nichts persönliches sein. Das war es nie, selbst damals als du deine Familie erledigt hast."
(You are involved, it couldn't be personal from the start. It never was, even back when you took care of your family.)
"Vielleicht. Vielleicht auch nicht. Ich wollte ihnen nur ein letztes mal in die Augen sehen." Brigid crosses her arms. "Um zu sehen ob ich irgendetwas in ihnen erkenne."
(Maybe. Maybe not. I just wanted to look you in the eyes one last time. To see if I recognize anything.)
"Und? Hat das Monster das ich erschaffen habe irgendetwas zu sagen?"
(And? Does the monster I created have anything to say?)
"… Nein. Nein, ich denke nicht. Sie werden jede Menge Zeit haben über all dies nachzudenken." (No. No, I don't think so. You will have plenty of time to think about all of this.) "Gabriel? Please be a dear and do it."
"Anytime," you shrug, figuring Mengele's five minutes are up.
Brigid turns around, unmoved by the sounds as you tear into the old man's throat with your teeth, his last struggles just comically outmatched.
Literal monsters in human skin always taste so rich…
You're back in the same room as when you last cocooned yourself in this dimension, figuring you may as well. The final, last bit of food you have finally eaten has clicked into place, the proverbial pot boiling over after months and months of staying at the cusp, just on the edge of triggering your temporary transformation, the overly full feeling you always get finally blooming out and turning into sticky, throbbing red thread that will become the muscle, the enormous heart that is soon going to pump distilled suffering into your very being.
Look, you can make that claim while being scientifically correct about it. You have to take chances like this when the world hands them to you.
So there you are, just waiting for your belly to finish churning, the tips of your fingers and toes and your tongue and your entire throat just itching with the knowledge of what you are about to do and become through them. Any moment now-
You blink, looking down at the Little Sister bringing a package of candles into the room. She looks back up at you.
"We'll be making lighties and plushies for Big Brother Angel!"
"… You know what, just go ahead, I don't even care anymore."
"Yay!"
When you finally spit out a generous amount of red, it is amidst an altar already being erected, but you kind of have something else entirely to worry about at the time, you know? In your experience, if you don't get your body into a comfortable position, your 'sleep' (state of relative nonexistence, whatever) will be absolutely awful for a day or two, until your body is dissolved to the point it doesn't matter anymore, so you're trying to web yourself in in a way that doesn't make anything stick out at weird angles.
Your success is relative, but who cares anymore, right?